Clearinghouse systems and methods for collecting or providing quality or performance data for enhanced availability of wireless communications

ABSTRACT

A computerized system, method and process allows telecommunications carriers to find, evaluate and select locations for equipment through direct access to end users, while providing citizens the opportunity to offer the use of their dwelling or other assets to carriers. The system and method further provides a computerized mechanism for (a) creating an inventory and marketplace for available properties for use in telecommunications networks, (b) providing quality and/or performance monitoring and control for wireless communication systems based on data in the clearinghouse, and (c) providing localized content over wireless networks using the clearinghouse.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 12/208,007,filed on Sep. 10, 2008, which claims the benefit of provisionalApplication No. 60/971,175, filed on Sep. 10, 2007, provisionalApplication No. 60/977,582, filed on Oct. 4, 2007, and provisionalApplication No. 61/028,261, filed on Feb. 13, 2008.

BACKGROUND

Many companies own or lease towers, and have expertise in thepositioning (sighting), leasing, designing and/or building of towers andother equipment that are used in providing or installingtelecommunications networks. American Tower, Crown Castle, InnerWirelessand America Connect, are examples of companies that own, lease, use, orconstruct towers or distributed antenna systems in and around towers orbuildings to enable wireless communications services to be distributedby various users, including without limitation either their own companyor their customers, such as AT&T Wireless, Vodaphone, Sprint, or publicor private radio system operators. These companies have proprietarytechniques, and their own staff which is generally quite large andincludes lawyers, engineers, sales people, and accountants, to conductsome or all of the following businesses: charge rent for towers and orantenna systems, charge for tower/antenna maintenance or tower locationservices, provide engineering or physical plant maintenance for towers,or antennas, and other associated equipment, install equipment, providewireless service for telecom carriers, argue zoning ordinances andrequest variances for tower or equipment installations, negotiate leasesof rooftops or tower sites, and other related products and servicespertaining to towers, antennas, and wireless infrastructure in general,in order to maintain and grow a business.

The aforementioned companies often use maps and population projections,along with topographical or geographical features, and radio frequency(RF) software simulators, in order to determine where to place towers orantennas for effective coverage of a service region, how high the towershould be, where a distributed antenna system (DAS) should be placed,what types of antennas are best suited for a particular need, and othertechnical, esthetic, physical, legal, or economic details regarding howtowers and/or antennas will effectively support radio communicationsthrough its coverage regions and through its building database and towerdatabase. These firms also generally use lawyers to review and assesszoning ordinances involved with the erection of towers or equipment, andto negotiate site leases or purchases.

U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,317,599; 6,442,507; 6,493,679; 6,499,006; 6,625,454;6,721,769; 6,850,946; 6,876,951; 6,971,063; 6,973,622; 7,019,753;7,035,642; 7,055,107; 7,085,697; 7,096,160; 7,096,173; 7,155,228;7,164,883; 7,171,208; 7,243,054; and 7,246,045, as well as patents andpublications of such organizations as American Tower, Spectrasite (whichmerged with American Tower, Crown Castle International, GalaxyEngineering, InCode (bought by Verasign), and InnerWireless deal withtechnical issues that must be engineered for specific applications inthe telecommunications business. These solutions are not aimed at ordirectly useable by ordinary end-user customers or ordinary landowners,homeowners, farmers, church parishioners, public service organizations,local governments, or building tenants who are generally not at allfamiliar with the technical details of telecommunications engineering,radio frequency planning, zoning restrictions, lease negotiations fortower sites, neighborhood covenants, or network management andoperations. Further, the prior art does not at all contemplate thefuture, open-spectrum world of wireless, where carriers will likely berequired by law to share their end users (e.g. subscribers) with othercarriers or services, in a way that is similar to the Carterphone rulingand MCI rulings in the US that required AT&T to provide open access ofequipment to its telephone (landline) infrastructure, and which is nowadopted globally in the landline world.

Other companies, such as power utility and television cable companies,also have a need for accessing, designing, acquiring, or leasing towers,and using towers, light poles, rooftops, and other structures such asparts cabinets, remote power supplies, storage facilities for vehicles,and the like, for supporting the provisioning of their services. Thesecarriers also have a need of being able to access the location of towersand other equipment, such as utility boxes and cabling, for maintenancepurposes, and need to be able to access the physical locations of theirequipment and cabling runs, for the purpose of installing or modifying,or upgrading equipment associated with its distribution of services.These companies pay staff and consultants large amounts of money toacquire real estate or to determine possible solutions to theseproblems.

In the specific case of tower companies, they typically lease or sellaccess to their towers to carriers, often with complicated leasearrangements, and at times may also sell their towers in undesirable orless useful locations. Typically, these leases and sales requirecomplicated contracts, deal terms, and protracted negotiations throughbrokers and technical consultancies. Sometimes carriers own their owntower business subsidiary, again requiring large staff and costlyconsultants. The public is generally not aware of these activities andhas no way to participate in this business or activity, which is adisadvantage for both the carriers and the public at large.

It is well understood that Ebay has emerged as a leader for citizens toauction goods directly over the internet, and the Ebay website allowspeople to auction off items through the internet without having to dealwith a large staff or complicated legal agreements. Meanwhile, many Web2.0 companies, such as MySpace, Itaggit, eHarmony, and Facebook allowpeople with similar interests or specific needs to meet on line, andallow the exchange of information between people, often resulting inbartering or sharing of knowledge or information. Google has become oneof the most trusted sources to find information on the web, because ofits powerful searching capability to find postings on many topics. Thepublic is able to access items quickly, efficiently, and at no cost tothem. All of these previously mentioned websites allow people to easilyand directly interact, without a lot of overhead or hassle.

Unfortunately, however, customers of internet or telephone service aregenerally viewed by the carrier as passive subscribers, paying a monthlybill to the telecom provider but not actively participating in theengineering or business improvement of the telecom provider's service.Today, telecommunication customers generally have no ability to readilyparticipate in the improvement of services or the quality of theirprovider, or to actively play a useful role in the distribution of thetelecom company's capabilities, except through the action of callingcustomer service to complain about their personal service experience.Today's telecom end-user customer is virtually powerless to readilyparticipate in the improvement of delivery of service of a commercialtelecommunication company's product, and is thus shut out frombenefiting financially from any such improvement that that individualcustomer might otherwise be able to offer. While there may be specialcases, where “someone knows someone at the telephone company who has aproblem”, by and large, telecom companies have no way to readily scaleor access the interests of individual customers who have a willingnessand interest to help improve their own telecom experience, while alsohelping the carrier.

In short, today, there does not exist a system or method or apparatusthat allows for the general public to easily alert or notify theirtelecommunications carrier, or any carrier, that they are interested andwilling to offer their premises to allow the carrier to improve service.Further, there does not presently exist a public clearinghouse wherecarriers can explore readily (and without public knowledge, if sodesired) available tower sites or available real estate or landavailable to their business needs. Not only does the public lose theability to help the carrier, but the carriers also lose out because theyare not aware of those customers who would be willing to help them withinfrastructure or over-the-air monitoring needs. Instead, carriers payhigh priced consultants in a close marketplace for infrastructureacquisition, thereby missing out on a virtually unlimited untappednumber of viable sites for use by their businesses.

Currently, companies such as Tropos Networks, and the MotoMesh andCanopy products (by Motorola), and many other companies are offeringwireless telecom gear that can offer communications networkconnectivity, where network traffic is sent wirelessly through one orseveral nodes of a network over a geographic area such as a city. Anexample of this was explained at the 2006 Texas Wireless Summitconference by a Tropos Networks executive, Oct. 2006, in Austin Tex.Many cellular, WIMAX, and Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs)today are deploying cellular or hub and spoke networks using line ofsight radios at 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 5 GHz in various unlicensed (andsometimes licensed) bands for backhaul, and cable television overwireless and T1/T3 wireless replacements are sure to emerge as a vitalmarketplace. WiMax and 4^(th) Generation cellular, with increasingbandwidths, will require more tower/site locations per square km, inline with the Power vs. Bandwidth tradeoff, that requires that moretowers per square kilometer be used when the operating bandwidthincreases for a given transmit power. See Wireless Communications:Principles and Practice, c. 2002, Prentice Hall, written by theinventor. Many cellular carriers, public/private network carriers,municipalities, WISPs, etc. today struggle with finding suitable towersor rooftop locations, or struggle gaining access to water towerlocations, and are often hindered by zoning ordinances, lack of publicunderstanding, or knowledge of why and how they could easily place theirequipment to serve customers. Even though many rural residents wouldlove to have wireless service, it is difficult for many WISPs to deploybroadband networks with limited capital, and the difficulty with dealingwith town ordinances, neighborhood covenants, and other restrictions,regulations, or bureaucracy involved for gaining permission to use orerect towers and other infrastructure deployments.

As an example, in today's implementation of Mesh or WiFi Networks, thedeployments of such systems usually rely on a particular municipality(muni-wifi customer) to have its own tower infrastructure (for example,city lamp poles, or water towers or police towers near city hall, etc.)in order to build the system. Keeping track of this infrastructurecurrently is difficult, often requiring consultants or differentsoftware, operating in a stove-pipe fashion, across differentmunicipalities, where there is little or no public way to view or add tothe knowledge base of the infrastructure.

An important emerging trend is that as carrier frequencies go higher,and as digital signal processing and modulation techniques such as MIMOand OFDM improve, the physical size of antennas will decrease, or atleast become distributed in space, meaning that the future towerstructures and physical size of antennas needed for telecom's wirelesscommunications links will shrink. Cooperative networking, meshnetworking, and peer-to-peer communications will also likely evolve,making the base station infrastructure less different then the end userequipment, and less bulky than today's infrastructure. Thus, towers ofthe future will not need to be today's large, bulky and ugly cellular orline-of-sight microwave variety, but will be much more lightweight, lessobtrusive (e.g. skinnier), and more convenient, less expensive, andreadily available for use on rooftops, billboard, church towers, or homeTV or ham towers, and requiring many more tower locations per squarekilometer than today.

Wireless equipment is being installed throughout the world to bringtelephone and internet services in locations where broadband previouslydid not exist. This is trend is certain to remain in other countriesthroughout the world, and most particularly in countries such as China,India, and other emerging nations that have a strong need to beconnected on the world's telecom grid, e.g. the world wide web ortelephone network. Because of the necessity of towers or antennas, andassociated network equipment, to be situated at particularly good radiolocations that are specific to each telecom company and their customer'sspecific locations, and given each carrier's need is specific to theirown network's specific design criteria and history of evolution, andbecause of the radio propagation aspects and geographical impactassociated with wireless transmissions, it has been heretoforeimpossible for telecom companies to engage in direct communication witha large customer base, in order to energize and engage its customer baseto help its product and service delivery.

Today, the inventor envisions very early signs of what will eventuallybe the “democratization” of the telecommunications infrastructureindustry, where all users may participate in helping carriers locateinfrastructure, and where open-access spectrum will require that allsubscribers of any particular carrier be allowed too use the spectrumand services of competing carriers. Today, end user customers arewilling to subscribe to satellite TV services, such as Echostar orDirect TV, and as part of that service, home owners allow the satellitecarrier to bolt antennas and cables onto their homes or on masts intheir yards. These satellite services require that a technician comedirectly to the end user's home, and in a matter of just a few hours,the technician installs a satellite dish and receiver on the roof, yard,or telephone pole or tree of the end-user's property, often having todrill holes through the exterior of the home, or through a wiringcabinet to bring the cable into the end users home, all the whilehammering/bolting hardware to the exterior or roof of the home.Customers are willing to allow equipment to be installed at theirpremises, as shown by the satellite TV industry, and its very rapidgrowth in just a few years. While satellite dish antennas serve theindividual homeowner, the satellite system is a receive-only system andthe equipment installed at the homeowner does not allow the satelliteprovider to improve the delivery of its content to neighboring houses orneighborhoods. Furthermore, there does not exist a public clearinghousethat lets others know which homes have satellite dish equipment in theiryards, and which do not. But this example is an early indicator,illustrating how citizens are now willing to have alien telecomequipment installed on their own premises, and to allow a technician toclimb around on the roof, yard, and drill holes in the house, if itprovides some benefit to them (e.g. gives them the ability to watchsatellite TV). Note that satellite antennas being installed today byEchostar and DirecTV are relatively small and unobtrusive, which is aharbinger of future wireless technologies.

Today, customers do not have a methodical, computerized way of receivingperks or bartered value in addition to improved service from carriers,in exchange for giving carriers the right to install and operate thecarrier's special equipment on its own property. However, if the carrierwas able to communicate and take inventory of each end user'scapabilities, the carrier could derive great value in its business andtechnical operations beyond just servicing the end user, in exchange forthe end user's willingness to allow the carrier access to its dwellingand property for the carrier's overall benefit. End users, if allowed toprovide access to carriers, could enjoy the goodwill of the surroundingneighbors, as they would be acting as a provider and enabler of servicesthat would benefit households around them.

Today, thousands of small, medium, and large telecom companies, such aswireless cable companies, wireless Internet service providers (WISPs),and mainstream wireless carriers throughout the world such as thosecompanies mentioned above are deploying wireless broadband networks,using an inventory of towers and or building structures where they haveaccess, to deliver last-mile services, but with no ability to enlist orsolicit the interests of ordinary citizens or even hobbyists who, ifthey were aware of the opportunity, might be willing to offer assistanceto carriers. Today, the telecommunications industry is unable to solicitthe help directly from its customer base, or from the citizenry atlarge, because of the previously mentioned technical difficulties andtrust issues involved with tower and equipment site selection, and thesheer lack of ability to communicate the needs and wants andcapabilities of the service provider, and the needs and wants andcapabilities of the end customer, in an easy, clear, and orderly manner.There has not been, to date, a trusted source that carriers can relyupon to broker communications directly between end users and thecarrier, itself. That is, there has not been, to date, such a “convener”for the telecommunications industry that would allow carriers to tap theinterest of its end user customers to aid it in the rapid expansion, orimprovement of quality and capabilities of telecommunication services,particular broadband, multimedia, WiFi, WiMax, cellular, satellite,public/private network, RFID or sensor based mass-communicationnetworks, and at lower design, operating, and ongoing cost levels.Furthermore, as shown herein, there are enormous benefits for theprovisioning of network services and content, on a localized or specificend-user basis, through the establishment of a trusted clearinghouse.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

An exemplary embodiment of this invention is to provide a system,method, process, and apparatus that will dramatically enhance theknowledge of available wireless network infrastructure locations, whichwill reduce the costs of antenna, equipment, or tower site acquisition,dramatically improve the ability for carriers to deploy wirelessnetworks from a cost, efficiency, and quality standpoint, and providepreviously unavailable, non-obvious, and unknown methods, systems,processes, and techniques for carrier networks to be augmented or builtfrom scratch more efficiently through the aid and participation of endusers. In addition to the assistance offered by citizens through thisinvention, the invention further contemplates the public at large beingable to contribute to and expand the knowledge base that may beexploited by both carriers and end users, since the inventioncontemplates that ordinances, laws, zoning regulations, technicaldetails, and graphical data such as plat maps, topographical contours ofland, and radio coverage zones, as well as educational information andpublic data, be made available through the disclosed clearinghouse. Fromthis expanded knowledge, the invention exploits the clearinghouse toprovide the ability to monitor and control large numbers of wirelessdevices across different networks and frequency bands for enhancedoperation, based on location specific information. The invention alsoallows for location-specific content, such as advertising, to beprovided to particular groups of telecommunication users in specificareas where infrastructure exists.

The present invention allows the customers of a carrier to benefit frombetter service, lower price for service, as well as receive benefitsfrom the carrier for being a “helping” or “value added” customer, etc.while the carrier is able to use the “helping” customer to improve itsservice or better utilize its resources, better locate itsinfrastructure, and improve its capital expenditures. In the specificcase of a telecom carrier, more effective, reliable and cost effectiveprovisioning and placement of network gear, antennas, bandwidthallocation over its geographic region, more effective equipment or towerlocations, etc. results from awareness and access to end users who arein a position to help the carrier. Furthermore, with this clearinghouseand included database comes the ability to monitor, in real-time or innon-real time, through automatic or manual processes, the performance orquality experienced by various end users and to provide rank ordering ofvarious carrier services for end users in various locations throughoutthe earth, so that either/both the clearinghouse or an end user ofwireless telecommunications services (or even a third party) may enjoyand archive/remember/know the performance or quality of service, such asperformance metrics of wireless service, availability of service, aranked list of preferred carriers, etc., as a function of where thewireless end user wishes or plans to use wireless service. Theclearinghouse and database further allows localized content to bedelivered to particular end users, or users in particular local areas,in a way not contemplated before.

It is the complexity of tower height, tower engineering andinstallation, antenna design and radio propagation fundamentals, andtown ordinances and restrictions in neighborhoods, combined with theoften secretive nature of a network operator's approach to coverage andquality issues, that has led to the current state of affairs, wherespecific companies and high priced consultancies serve as tower ownersor brokers, and where specific, specialized companies provide for thetelecom carrier detailed technical or electrical services, such asantenna engineering or propagation design, or access to buildingstructures or towers, at higher costs than what telecom companies wouldlikely pay if they otherwise could deal directly with their endcustomers in a non-confusing and trusted way. Not only is wirelessinfrastructure a problem for carriers today, but there are instanceswhere a carrier would like to install power conditioning, wiredinfrastructure, vehicles, parking places, or backup equipment or gear ina particular location, and if the carrier could locate such devices orinfrastructure on a particular customer's premises, it would be of greatvalue to the carrier, particularly if the end user was trustworthy, hadexpressed an interest and willingness to help the carrier, and gainedsome consideration (e.g. free internet or payments to help with herpower bill). The invention solves the problem stated in this paragraph,by democratizing the site acquisition process, and furthermore builds onthe inherent knowledge created through the clearinghouse to createpowerful quality/performance monitoring as well as localized contentprovisioning.

Mobiledea and its extension, CellReception.com, were started by AllenTasi. These are firms or websites that use the FCC database of towerlocations, and plot the approximate coverage for customers to see usingGoogle Maps. These websites also allow customers to share comments oncellphone reception. Consumer-based websites and companies such asMobiledia.com and CellReception.com provide revenues for the websiteowner by allowing for advertising by companies such as Radio Shack andvarious cellphone vendors, and the sites provide for public commentsregarding cell reception, individual cellphones, and other cellular andwireless issues, but they do not serve in a clearinghouse capacity ascontemplated by this invention. Antennasearch.com is a website providedby General Data Resources that provides a search of various publicdomain databases regarding tower locations and tower filings, such asthe database provided by the FCC website that lists all tower locationsand pending tower applications. Antennasearch.com generates an on-linereport that shows a map of tower locations for a specific street addressor zipcode. The on-line report may be completed by someone browsing theworldwide web. Google has recently begun to show the location of WiFihotspots (infrastructure locations) on its Google Maps or Google Earthapplications, in order to provide a position location capability forend-users. However, Google, AntennaSearch, and everyone else for thatmatter, has not offered a clearinghouse that allows any citizen or anycarrier to exploit a database of wants and needs in order to create amarketplace for determining available infrastructure sites, andfurthermore has not exploited such a clearinghouse in order toprovision, monitor, or control wireless networks for the benefit of endusers or carriers, nor has anyone further exploited such a database tooffer localized advertising or site-specific content.

Clearly the aforementioned companies, services, and websites do notallow customers or the public to offer their own assets for thedeployment of telecom services, nor do they shed light on antennaregulations, zoning ordinances, RF planning (suitable for specifying newor inventoried tower sites), or neighborhood restrictions. These typesof websites furthermore offer no forum to exchange or add public domaindocuments pertaining to town ordinances or covenants for neighborhoodsin specific zip codes, which would be of great value to end users, thepublic, and carriers wishing to serve that particular area. Zip codesare a popular sorting technique for parcel delivery services that arescheduling using the world-wide web for companies such as FedEx, DHL,and UPS. These websites also do not allow a carrier to discretelydetermine which of its customers, or potential customers, might havesome land, tower site, rooftop, or building that he would be willing toallow the carrier to use for buildout of its network. Thus, there is noattempt currently to create a clearinghouse of telecom infrastructureassets, which may further be exploited to offer the capabilitiesdisclosed herein.

Use of mapping technologies and applications such as Google Maps or aGIS package, such as the USGS, or commercial programs such as those madeby EDX Engineering, Wireless Valley Communications (now owned byMotorola), Comsearch, Celplan, etc., are well known in the art. Inschools across the world, students are learning how to interact withGoogle Maps and other GIS applications, even when they have no or littleregard for wireless theory, telecom regulations, the needs of thetelecom industry, or RF propagation. For example, at the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology (MIT) in Spring 2007, a computer science courseon pervasive human-centric and mobile computing (MIT 6.883 taught byLarry Rudolph) had students using Google Maps to create circularcontours of hypothetical tower locations, without regard for towerzoning ordinances or RF coverage or equipment installation guidelines,and with no contemplation of the invention disclosed herein. The user'smanuals for these mapping technologies and applications, and the coursenotes and links to information which are posted on the worldwide web forthe Spring 2007 Class of 6.883 at MIT are hereby incorporated byreference. It should be evident that none of these contemplate or makeobvious the invention disclosed herein.

See:

-   http://people.csail.mit.edu/rudolph/Teaching/home883.html, and-   http://people.csail.mit.edu/rudolph/Teaching/ps1.pdf

This patent describes a computerized “convener” apparatus, system, andmethod where individual citizens or businesses of a community may offerthe use of their homes, land, building structures, outbuildings,apartments, billboards, churches, water towers, towers, trees, lightpoles, barns, and any other possible location on or about their premisesto eager telecom service providers. Up until now, telecommunicationscompanies were not able to alert a wide customer base that it needs aspecific tower located at a particular latitude and longitude or streetaddress, for example, that it needs a tower that complies withneighborhood covenants, town ordinances, and yet requires a tower thatpermits RF propagation with a signal strength (say of −70 dBm), and aparticular front to back ratio (say of 20 dB) at a particular address orgeographic region in order to cover a particular neighborhood that isjust out of reach of its existing towers. Until this invention, atelecommunications company could not acquire the information from itslarge customer base as to who would be interested in helping them with aspecific tower location. It simply has not been done in the history ofthe telecommunications industry, and this invention solves this unmetneed to allow both customers and telecom providers to benefit.Furthermore, this invention provides the key to offering services to endusers and to carriers, as well as third party intermediaries as thetelecommunications world evolves to an open-standard, where end usersmay share the networks of many competing providers.

Today, carriers are often secretive about where they have serviceproblems because it may alienate customers in that area, and could allowcompetitors to seize opportunities where the carrier is known to behaving poor quality or coverage problems. This invention solves thisproblem, among others.

Furthermore, this patent describes a new kind of apparatus, system, andmethod that can exploit the inventorying and clearinghouse informationprovided by end users, carriers, and the public, in a form such that itmay be franchised or distributed in a private label or OriginalEquipment Manufacturing (OEM) manner, and where the systems and methodsdescribed herein may be offered as a trusted service by carriers,non-profits, for-profit companies, governments, intermediaries and thelike, either across specific customer types, or within specificgeographic localities.

This invention applies to any carrier-based system, but is preferablyused for a telecommunication network, no matter what the distance isbetween users of the network, whether it is wired or wireless, or whatthe transmitter-receiver separation distance is of wireless components,or what the technology, modulation, access method, etc. may be. That is,this patent is not limited to wireless, optical, cellular, WiMax, Mesh,WiFi, RFID, LMDS, cable, or satellite, and not limited to fixed, mobile,or portable operation by users, as it is intended to be used in itsbroadest form, as would be understood by one skilled in the art indeploying, designing, operating, or using such a network that has endusers, and where infrastructure is needed and must be located, atphysical locations, for carrying out communications, either wired orwireless communications, and also as well anticipating the provisioningof an open access environment where federal or local regulations requireend users to have access or the ability to specify or select (eithermanually, pre-selected, or automatically on-the-fly as the wirelessdevice is used by the end-user) more than one single carrier forbroadband access with a particular end user and/or her device. Thus,this invention serves the needs of indoor/enterprise networks orfemtocells within public or private buildings, as well as microcell ormacrocell cellular network usage and coverage ranges, emerging WiMaxsystems, satellite systems, future cable TV/wireless networks, andcity/county, country, or worldwide networks, and public safety networks,whether public or private.

Furthermore, this invention may be extended beyond telecommunications,and may be applied to any carrier-based service, where subscribers payfor an on-going service over a period of several days, months, or years,and where participation of the end users, and direct interaction betweenthe carrier and the users could improve the efficiency, quality,business operations, or technical operations of the carrier over itsserving areas.

The invention allows a 3^(rd) party entity (A person, or a corporation,say a website company, or tower holding company, or an intermediary, forexample) to offer inventory and polling services to carriers and thecarrier's customers (end users), as well as to the public, through theuse of the knowledge-base that is created from the clearinghouse ofinterested citizens willing to assist telecom companies.

The invention further allows a person or a carrier or an intermediary toinform, educate, and solicit inputs from its customers regarding itscustomer's interest or ability to help the carrier with expansion,alteration, or improvement of the carrier's network, or on multi-carriernetworks, through the use of the knowledge-base that is created from theclearinghouse of interested citizens willing to assist telecomcompanies.

The invention provides a system and method and process that allows aperson or a company, such as a publisher, a Web 2.0 company, a carrier,or a trusted web portal, to offer an e-magazine, a printed magazine, anewsletter, a website, and/or an internet blog, where each may includean inventorying service between one or more carriers and its customerbase of end users, such that end users are able to provide the carrieran inventory of their assets that may be used to help the carrier(s).

The invention provides a system and method and process that allows aperson or company, such as a publisher, a Web 2.0 company, a carrier, atower holding company, or a trusted web portal, to offer an e-magazine,a printed magazine, a newsletter, a website, or an internet blog, whereeach may include a bartering system and method between one or morecarriers and its customer base, for the bartering of installation orredeployment of equipment at the end user's dwelling in exchange forcompensation of some type from the carrier(s) or an intermediary.

The invention provides a system and method and process that allows aperson or a company, such as a publisher, a Web 2.0 company, a carrier,or a trusted web portal, to offer an e-magazine, a printed magazine, anewsletter, a website or an internet blog, where each may include aregistration system and method between a carrier and its customer base,whereby end user customers may register to express interest and abilityto support equipment at their dwelling with one or more carriers, andwhere each may include a system and method that allows a carrier toexecute an agreement regarding the installation or modification oftelecommunications equipment at the dwelling owned or or used orcontrolled by end users in its customer base, with pre-negotiated orselectable terms for remuneration, or with terms handled over theinternet or through computer access, thereby eliminating the need ofcostly lawyers and protracted, cumbersome negotiations for siteacquisition which is the state of affairs today.

The invention provides a system and method and process that permitscarriers or an independent clearinghouse, or a third party intermediary,to communicate with end user customers, or the wireless devices ofend-user customers, in order to aid the end-user in determining how andwhere new or existing telecommunications assets may be deployed or whereservice and which service is best or more preferred to the end user,while allowing performance or quality of service knowledge or rankordering of available telecommunication services to be provided to awireless end-user. The invention furthermore allows for the control ofthe operation of a wireless device for enhanced operation, in aparticular location based on a ranking of performance or specificrequests (made either automatically or as preset) by an end-user, orcarrier, or a clearinghouse that provides knowledge on multiplecarriers.

The invention provides a system and method and process that permits aclearinghouse to communicate with end user customers, or the wirelessdevices of end-user customers, in order to allow the clearinghouse tomonitor the radio operating conditions and location of end user devices,whereby the monitored radio operating conditions and locations may bestored, processed and used to update the clearinghouse for monitoringwireless network performance and quality.

The invention provides a system and method that permits a carrier,technician or the end-user to determine how and where new or existingtelecommunications assets may be deployed or are available. The systemand method is available to the end user, and allows one or morecarriers, or a clearinghouse with knowledge of multiple carriers, toprovide measures of wireless quality and rank ordering of availabletelecommunication services to a wireless end-user, for the benefit ofthe end user, or to control the operation of a wireless device forenhanced operation, in a particular location based on a ranking ofperformance or specific requests by an end-user or carrier. Furthermore,the invention provides a system and method that permits one or more endusers to report their observations of wireless performance and quality,or rank orderings thereof, as a function of location, to theclearinghouse so that the clearinghouse may maintain archived or updatedknowledge of wireless quality as a function of location throughoutearth.

The invention provides a system and method and process that allows aperson or company, such as a publisher, a Web 2.0 company, a carrier, ora trusted web portal, to offer one or more of an inventorying,registration, lease agreement execution, and bartering service, system,or method to specific types of real estate owners in order to aggregatethe assets available to form a database for the clearinghouse.

The computerized system according to this invention serves at least twotypes of customers: end users or carriers, with password protection andopt-in capabilities where the end users may chose to have theiravailability/interest in supporting carrier needs shared among more thanone carrier.

The computerized system according to this invention provides the entryof customer interests/desires, customer data, and provides access todocuments such as town ordinances, town zoning rules, neighborhoodcovenants, and contracts or sample contracts or agreements betweentelecom carriers and end users for allowing end users to aid thecarriers under mutually agreeable terms.

A computerized system according to the invention allows end users orcarriers or a third party to add documents such as town ordinances, townzoning rules, neighborhood covenants, state or local laws, and contractsor sample contracts or agreements between telecom carriers and endusers.

A computerized system and method where a graphical information system(GIS), such as (but not limited to) Google Earth, MapInfo, USGS, is usedwith a database of infrastructure locations provided by end-usersthrough the clearinghouse in order to aid carriers or end users fordetermining radio coverage footprints or possibly useful/valuableinfrastructure locations.

A computerized system according to the invention allows radiopropagation prediction algorithms to be run using the GIS and equipmentmodels in order to determine coverage regions, obstacles due to terrainor buildings, and viable locations for towers, antennas, repeaters,nodes, and end user premise equipment.

A computer system according to the invention can be built upon adatabase of customer needs, and may also include carrier needs, thatallows the rapid sorting and pinpointing of available locations for acarrier or other party to build, lease, or use a Dwelling or existinglocation for improvement of services.

A computer system according to the invention allows end users to learnabout telecom laws, ordinances, opportunities, and technical details sothat they are more knowledgeable and interested in assisting telecomcarriers in the provisioning of telecom networks.

A computerized system according to the invention allows end users torank their happiness or satisfaction with their carrier, or withinformation providers to the clearinghouse, after entering into arelationship through the “convener” clearinghouse, and where carriers orother parties may also rank their happiness with end users, as well.

A computer system according to the invention includes a database oflocations of end users who are willing to assist with the provisioningof telecom services at their premises, combined with RF coverage detailsthat enable the determination of promising locations of towers orstructures (either existing or to be built), combined with legal recordssuch as covenants, town ordinances, combined with plat maps or zoningboundaries, so that a telecom carrier or end user can quickly and easilysee what is viable for provisioning of telecom services. One embodimentof the invention allows for the computerized system and method toautomatically determine the best locations from a wish-list provided byone or more carriers or third parties, based on the available publicrecords and end user inventory of locations available.

A computer system according to the invention allows for an educationalor newsworthy web publication or paper publication to be created rapidlyfrom content stored on a computer, where such web publication or paperpublication may be private labeled or customized specifically for aparticular carrier, neighborhood, locality, or group of people orspecific entities/customers.

DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES

This invention will be further understood through illustrations providedin the accompanying figures, which are now described.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the clearinghouse computer system,including applications that run on the computer system, the types ofinterfaces provided to end-users, and the types of users of theclearinghouse.

FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of how the database of theclearinghouse system is organized, and the types of information andrecords maintained for each of the types of users.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example form that is completed by an end user orcarrier for input to the clearinghouse system, using the various typesof available interfaces.

FIG. 4 illustrates a flow diagram of how the clearinghouse determinesmatches between the end user interests, the carrier's infrastructurerequirements, and local ordinances that apply, and how the clearinghousenotifies the carrier. This also can assume an automated process that mayhave carrier involvement/intercession if required by the carrier tonotify end users that they may be of assistance to the carrier's needs,and the terms and conditions available to the end user. Not shown, butimplied, is the ability to generate lease forms or business forms neededto codify a legal and business agreement between end-user and carrier.

FIG. 5 illustrates a database, which may be a primary database orback-up database, which is accessible by various users of theclearinghouse, and which may be refreshed or updated upon computercommand.

FIG. 6 illustrates the various applications that may be actuated by theinvention, and which are available to users.

FIG. 7 illustrates a mobile device and how it may be connected bywireless or wired means through the worldwide web to the clearinghouse.

FIG. 8 illustrates a mobile device and how it may report itsobservations of its location, as well as network quality and theavailable spectrum back to the clearinghouse.

FIG. 9 illustrates a mobile device receiving information from theclearinghouse so that a mobile device may be manually or automaticallyconfigured for improved wireless operation.

FIG. 10 shows a flow diagram of how a clearinghouse works with awireless device, such as a cellphone, to enhance wireless performance atthe wireless device.

FIG. 11 shows a flow diagram of how the wireless device reports itsobservations to the clearinghouse for ranking of possible wirelessconnection options, and updating of knowledge of wireless environment atthe clearinghouse.

FIG. 12 shows a flow diagram of how a wireless device is able to receiveupdated information about its operating parameters, based on theknowledge of the operating environment by clearinghouse, so that thewireless device may be sent instructions that cause the wireless deviceto be automatically tuned to appropriate frequencies, air interfaces,and other operating parameters to provide enhanced operation for theparticular wireless device, or the entire network.

FIG. 13 shows a diagram of wireless infrastructure using an InternetProtocol (IP) network backhaul from the base transceiver station (BTS)or switch. The BTS or switch, as well as infrastructure componentscloser to edge of the wireless network, are coupled to the clearinghouseusing IP or world wide web addressing, where through such addressing,advertising content is provided to particular pieces of infrastructurethrough an advertiser server that may be located centrally or may beintegrated and coupled to various wireless infrastructure components.

FIG. 14 illustrates a flow diagram of how local advertising may becached or stored at the clearinghouse and may also be optionallydistributed to local ad servers throughout a wireless network.

FIG. 15 shows a flow diagram of how the clearinghouse may be used toprovide local advertising content by identifying the requested IPaddress or worldwide web address requested by the wireless device(wireless user) and by formatting data suitable for interpretation bythe wireless user.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

This invention uses a computer, also known as a central processing unit,or CPU, which may be a single computer, a web server, a cluster of webservers, or some other configuration of computing equipment, whether inseries or in parallel or distributed that is able to obtain informationthrough telephonic, text, voice/telephone, internet communication, orother methods known now or in the future. The computer runs programs andalgorithms in order to prompt and to determine an end-user's interest inadding his or her property and locations, and facts about the availablereal estate that the end-user wishes to make available. The computerprovides for the storage of provided information in memory of thecomputer, for use in the clearinghouse repository. The CPU is alsounderstood to use memory for storage and retrieval of operatinginstructions which dictate the proper operation of the website, theresponse to various inputs from users via the worldwide web, telephone,or other various interfaces, and the programs needed to interpretinputs, store and process the received information, and to properlyformat and display the information, and also uses memory to retaininformation stored in databases, where such databases represent thedetails provided by end-users, or carriers, or which represent data thathas been obtained through the use of web-crawlers from public websites,as further described in the accompanying figures.

The computer interacts with employees from carriers, or from thecomputers of other companies, such as carriers or tower companies, orfrom public websites, as well as from intermediaries that may help tostore, cache, process, or post data to memory (where such memory iscoupled to the clearinghouse computer, or elsewhere) in order todetermine the specific needs and interests of the carrier or towercompany. The computer is able to provide or process one or more of:automated voice prompts, speech recognition, touchtone recognition,web-based communication, handwritten, or human to human interaction, andso on. Through the computer interface, and the associated systems andmethods described subsequently, end user customers of telecommunicationsservices are able to make its telecom carrier, or, optionally, evenpotential competitors to their current telecom carrier, aware of his orher ability and/or interest to help carriers with their distribution oftelecommunications services through the use of their own premises.Similarly, the computer interface and associated systems and methodsdescribed subsequently allow a carrier, a public organization, oroptionally the general public to be aware of the locations at whichcitizens are willing or interested in allowing their locations to beused to house telecommunications infrastructure. Below are some usefuldefinitions of terms used throughout this patent.

Dwelling or Premises: any property, building, outbuilding, structure,tower, vegetation, or land, or any thing on or in or over or under aproperty occupied or used or controlled by an end user for which the enduser may wish to make available for use by others. The definition of“dwelling” may also include one or more rooftops, silos, billboards,trees, church steeples, poles, towers, ledges, parts of a building,outbuildings, lookouts, extensions to buildings, or signs, and/or anyimprovements.

Carrier: Any company or entity that offers services to an end user on aregular basis over time. The term “carrier” is intended to be given itsbroadest possible meaning, as it is meant to describe companies thatoffer to end users services such as telecommunications, connectivity,entertainment (such as movies, cable, multimedia, music, on all possiblemedia and all possible delivery mechanisms), AC power for the home, maildelivery/retrieval, archiving or storage, inventorying, cleaning, yardmaintenance, water delivery, laundry service, and the like.

End user: Any person or entity that participates in an ongoing servicefrom a provider. An end user may be someone who simply stumbles acrossthe clearinghouse disclosed herein, who browses or interacts with theclearinghouse only one time, or someone who interacts with theclearinghouse many times, and who may even list their infrastructurelocation with the clearinghouse disclosed herein. Alternatively, an enduser may be a telecommunications subscriber or a clearinghouseparticipant who obtains cellphone or internet service from a telecomcarrier or quality/ranking/performance information or local content fromthe clearinghouse. End-users may also include those people or entitieswhich are not yet subscribing to the service offered by a carrier or theclearinghouse, but who have interest in participating and inquiringabout the content of the clearinghouse and possibly contributing assetsor capabilities to the clearinghouse or to a carrier, either from theirown personal interest or edification, or because they hope to gain somebenefit or remuneration of some kind at some point. An end user may be aperson, but also may be an entity or an enterprise, such as a church,and apartment building complex, a co-op of people, a shopping mall, acar dealership or chain of car dealerships, or a business, eitherstand-alone or spread out on a campus or throughout the world, forexample. End-users may be people from the general public, or may be atypical user from a specific type of user population (for example,employees within a large corporation may be end-users of the invention,if the invention were implemented in an enterprise fashion for aparticular corporation. As another example, not meant to be limiting, anend user could be a ham radio operator who is a member of the AmericanRadio Relay League, ARRL, if the invention were made available to allARRL members). Other examples are readily understood.

Computer: May be a single computer or a group of computers, or CPUs,which may include associated circuitry and components, such as banks ofmemory (storage), back up gear, displays, human and machine interfacesof various kinds, parallel computer processors, distributed computerprocessors, distributed or single connections to the internet,distributed or single displays or editing/viewing capabilities, one ormore web servers, mail servers, and multipurpose servers and routers, orany coupling of computerized components that allow for one or more of:telephonic answering, touch tone interpretation, voice recognition,handwriting recognition, facial or fingerprint recognition, stylusrecognition or typed data entry (either directly from a keyboard, viatelephone or internet connection, from a phone, over wired or wirelessor optical connection), text recognition, file transfers, datatransfers, file caching, file storage or entry or manipulation, runningof software, hosting of applications, running of applications made up ofcomputer programs from one or many sources, where components andsoftware are coupled or combined as known to one skilled in the art. Theterm “Computer” is to be construed in its broadest interpretation, asthe invention may clearly be practiced at a single location, distributedacross a country, a city, or used worldwide with a network of computersand backup storage located throughout different continents, as it iscontemplated to host at least one website, and to enable connections ofthe website with and between end users and carriers. This specificationdescribes the operations implemented on a computer, but it must beunderstood that a computer with memory may be implemented in many ways,and that the computer of the clearinghouse may need to directly orindirectly interact with other computers and databases as provided byweb intermediaries, such as Akamai that can cache/store/stream content,Rackspace or INetU, that can provide web hosting, and so on. Thedisclosed invention, including the computer (CPU) described herein, isunderstood to include the ability to interface using some or all ofthese known techniques for hosting a web-based clearinghouse for endusers as described herein through the use of sub-contractors andexternal vendors and service providers for internet access and commerce.

Many techniques are known in the art for computers to be able tointeract with and assimilate data from people. Consider some examples oftelephonic and touch tone phone inputs that are provided by humans andare processed by a computer. Furthermore, voice recognition systems, andvoice over IP (VoIP) calls to a computer are well understood today, andit is further recognized that end uses of telecom services, and peoplethroughout the world in general, may access a computer in many differentways using the worldwide web. For example, web interfaces are used inprograms for personal computers, and personal computers may be connectedvia any form of internet connection to a computer that hosts a website.Websites may also be accessed by cellphones, PDAs, tablet computers,such as those made by Motion Computing with handwriting and fingerprintrecognition, and many other devices.

Websites which allow for posted materials, updated materials, andgraphical and text interactions, even podcasts or videos, are well knownin the art, as demonstrated by Google, Inc.'s wide range of web portals,as well as those by eBay, YouTube, Yahoo, and the like. All of thesewebsites and product companies described above use a “computer” ascontemplated here. Furthermore, automatic document generators are alsowell known and are in regular use today, where content can be bundledand packaged into web form, electronic media form, or print form, tohave a homogenous look and feel, based on content that is stored in fileformats such as files in .XML, .HTML, .BMP, .TIG, .GIF, .PDF and otherformats known now or in the future, and through use of JavaScriptprogramming language, and cross-platform techniques such as AJAX(Asynchronous Java Script and XML), which allows web applications toseem much more responsive by not interfering with normal web pageloading.

To launch a commercial website, many companies provide tools andcapabilities that make it viable. For example, InetU or Rackspaceprovide Managed Web Hosting, where they provide a computerized systemthat a customer (the website company) can use and access through a login to edit, remove, add, or reorganize content in the form of webpages,downloads, documents, and a wide range of other viewable or useablemultimedia forms that may be accessed by the public, or by passwordprotected classes of users who may or may not pay a subscription foraccess to the website. Also, the website company may choose to simply dohosted services. In order to generate revenue, PayPal offers softwareand servicers that enables a hosted site to exploit the PayPal developernetwork to create webpage(s) that allows a website company to securelycollect monies from the browsing public, accepting all major creditcards and PayPal currency through web transactions. To maintaindatabases that contain important information, a website company will useMySQL (open source) or SQLServer, or Postgress as a backend databasesystem to store myriads of data records, for rapid access by theapplications running on the computer, and other known documentmanagement techniques are used for archiving and retrieving documents,and for accessing applications over the web such as Google Earth, USGS,or county or local city/county plat maps, ordinances, or board meetingnotes that are often available on line.

With reference to the drawings, FIG. 1 shows an exemplary embodiment ofthe Clearinghouse system. On the left portion of FIG. 1, various typesof users of the system are shown. Note that Carriers 10, End usercustomers 12, and public users 14 each may have access to theclearinghouse 16 via a wide range of interfaces, including web 18, phone20 or 22 (using cellphone or wired phone or VoIP phone), email 24, orthrough automated voice recognition or digital recorders (that mayrecognize speech, handwriting, fingerprinting, etc). The owner oroperator or proprietor 26 (and any employees or subcontractors) of theclearinghouse 16 may also access the clearinghouse 16 by theseinterfaces, as well, and may have one or more additional proprietaryinterfaces to the system (not shown). On the right side of FIG. 1, anumber of applications 28, capable of running on the Clearinghousecomputer 30, or being controlled by the computer on distributedprocessors (not shown), and some applications which may be madeavailable to only certain classes of users (e.g. end users, carriers,third parties, the public, owners/operators of the clearinghouse itself,and so on), are shown and are further described subsequently. FIG. 1also shows that carrier records 32 and end user records 31 are alsoavailable to the computer 30, and that a sorting and parsing application36 is available to process these records. Note that the Clearinghousecomputer 30 is preferably coupled to the Internet 38, as shown in FIG.1, so that the various users and user classes may access theClearinghouse (FIGS. 1 and 6) and its database (FIG. 5) through theInternet (e.g. worldwide web), as well as the other interfaces shown inFIG. 1. Note that the Internet access shown in FIG. 1 may be a publicweb connection, or provided on a private network.

The carriers 10 and end user customers 12 may or may not be regularsubscribers or participants of the clearinghouse 16. A preferredembodiment is for the clearinghouse 16 to have revenue-generatingsubscribers, where the carriers 10 and end user customers 12 sign up foraccess, preferably using credit card (although written check or wiretransfer or debit card or purchase orders may also be accepted by theclearinghouse) for monthly or annual billing. The sign up and passwordmanagement and credit card billing is preferably handled by the creditcard sign up and password management application 40 (shown on rightportion of FIG. 1). This application 40 is preferably run under computercontrol and provides various prompts through the interfaces for users toenter credit card data, password and user identification information, sothat the Clearinghouse 16 may uniquely identify individual users, storetheir log in and password information, and store credit card informationfor billing purposes. These data may be stored in a single memorylocation 42 or in a distributed memory bank or in any other suitablestorage medium or database, and would preferably be encrypted forprivacy.

By signing up as a subscriber, for example over a year period, carriershave continual access to the clearinghouse and end user database (seeFIG. 5) during that time, and some of the features that they would enjoyare exemplified by the various applications shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 6.For example, a carrier 10 that is a user of the Clearinghouse 16 couldprovide its current locations of all its infrastructure assets and couldalso include desired “wish list” locations for infrastructure accessthrough the carrier records application which is described in moredetail subsequently (also see FIGS. 2 and 3). Based on the inputs, thecomputer 30 implements the sorting and parsing application 36 toperiodically search the end user records 31 provided by end user 12.Note that in a preferred embodiment, the carrier 10 or the end user 12may specify locations by simply clicking on a web page for “click onmap” (not shown in FIG. 2, shown on FIG. 3 as 310), and then using amouse or other computer indicating device, may simply click on a mapdisplayed on a webpage in order to express or denote a particularlocation that is entered as a record 210. This capability is alsoavailable to general public users 14, and other users of theClearinghouse 16 in order to rapidly denote locations of interest.

FIG. 3 shows, as an example, both an end user form and a carrier form,that exemplifies what may be used by users and presented by theClearinghouse for data entry to create information used in the end userrecords and carrier records. Of course, other data as contemplatedwithin this patent may be included, and is not shown in FIG. 3. Also,other approaches may be used to input data to the clearinghouse,including file transfers, catalog entries from third parties thataggregate user information, and other input techniques known to provideinputs of large numbers of customers into clearinghouses and theirdatabases. For the case of a carrier 10 specifying its particularinfrastructure needs, the user 10 (the employee, consultant, or agent ofthe carrier) could simply press “click on map” 311 shown in FIG. 3 inthe carrier record form, and could identify portions of a map whereneeds exist as indicated above. Alternatively, carriers 10 couldindicate their “wish list” for infrastructure by entering streets,counties, zip codes, Lat./Long. Coordinates, or even text descriptionsof where they need coverage, or uploadable files that contain manylistings of locations, in GPS or Lat./Long format, address, or zipcodeformat, etc. such that the computer could interpret the entry todetermine the geographic locations of needed infrastructure (not shownon FIG. 3, but should be understood from this description). It is clearthat carriers 10 could alternatively enter their current infrastructurelocations using the carrier records (e.g., entering data on the form inFIG. 3—the form in FIG. 3 is preferably a computer-fillable form;however, paper based forms and electronic files can be used in someapplications. In addition, the information in the form can include ormore less information than that shown on FIG. 3). By having some or allof a carrier's infrastructure cataloged in the carrier records database(FIG. 5), the Clearinghouse 16 can then better manage the carrier'sassets and better display and process the end user databases to meet thecarriers current and future needs. For example, the Clearinghouse 16,given knowledge of the carrier's 10 complete inventory of existinginfrastructure, could implement the RF engineering/planning applicationto take into account RF propagation, interference, spectrum use, andantenna patterns to better determine site needs and to providemanagement of RF planning for the carrier 10. Information generated bythe Clearinghouse 16 may be displayed 44 on site or remotely, anddifferent displayed information can be provided to different users 10,12, 14, and 26.

The Clearinghouse database 510, shown in FIG. 5, is accessible by manydifferent classes of users 512, 514, 516 or 518, and is made up ofrecords provided and modified by end users and carriers, as shown inFIG. 1 and described above. The Clearinghouse database 510 also includesdata that is submitted or provided by the public (e.g. through publicwebsites, through links to external databases, or which is provided asinputs from general public users). Also, theemployees/owners/managers/suppliers of the Clearinghouse itself must beable to access and at times manipulate the database. The Clearinghousecomputer 30 or a computing system under its control determines therefresh update rate of the database 510, and governs how often thedatabases are backed up, refreshed, and modified for presentation to theoutside world through the interfaces shown in FIG. 1. Thus, preferablythe various classes of users, when accessing the Clearinghouse 16, arenot necessarily obtaining the most recent information provided by allclasses of users, but are obtaining information that is updated at arate specified by or at least acceptable to the Clearinghouse computer30, which would typically be once a day, but could be more often or lessoften. Data inputs might be made instantly at the discretion of thecomputer 30 or outside vendors or other computers which interface withcomputer 30. The term “database” means all of the data available to theClearinghouse, but it should be clear when a subset of data is beingdiscussed, the term “database” may only refer to that subset ofinformation. The term database should not be viewed as limiting, as thedatabase for the clearinghouse may be implemented in parallel,distributed, real time, non-real time, and a wide variety of forms knownnow or in the future. Note that database 510 may incorporate a widerange of possible data formats, mixed formats, and may include data thatis contained at various locations, by various suppliers or vendors. Thatis, while a MySQL format may be the preferred format for storing data inthe database, nothing is meant to limit the way in which the database isformed, as it is understood that the database may comprise a wide rangeof different sources and formats of data, and in fact the database maybe distributed geographically, and provided by many different sourcesand vendors, such as through Akamai for caching/storage, Rackspace as aweb host, and public websites which are accessed by the clearinghouse toprovide on-demand or cached versions of public data. This patent intendsfor the database 510 to include data that may be retained in current andfuture data formats that may not be known today, and it is understoodthat various methods for storing/archiving, modifying, and retrievingdata, which includes the use of software that is run by theClearinghouse CPU to provide hooks into/interact with other computerswhich may control access to external databases, as well as datamaintained or owned by the clearinghouse itself, may be contained indatabase 510. Furthermore, the database may be populated or edited byvarious sources, including people who are remote or employed by thirdparties, and web crawlers that may or may not be under control of theClearinghouse computer 30. Human intervention, to vet or approve datathat comes from internal and external sources, may also be used, and theentry of human-approved data may also be included in the database 510.

When matches to the desired needs of the carrier are found in thedatabase containing end user records, a “hit list” of all potentiallyavailable properties or locations that are deemed suitable isconstructed by the applications. The computer then may implement theemail application to send an email to the carrier 10, and optionallyalso to the end users 12 (depending on carrier preference), oralternatively, the web application may be implemented to provide the“hit list” in web viewable format available to the carrier 10 when theyare logged in to the Clearinghouse 16. In this manner, the Clearinghouse16 may over time allow the carrier 10 to be automatically notified whennew end-users 12 offer dwellings for use, either by email or byon-screen notification when they log on or through a messaging feature.

Furthermore, the computer may run the selection/optimizer application 34on occasion or periodically (on an hourly/daily/weekly/or some othertime basis or on a random basis) where the application 34 uses inputs bythe carrier 10 that are stored in the Clearinghouse 16. The interval maybe determined by the clearinghouse provider 16, or may be selected bythe carrier 10, perhaps with a premium being charged for searches thatoccur more often. The clearinghouse computer 30 preferably runs acomputer program or subroutine, or groups of programs or subroutinesthat may be running in many geographically dispersed locations undercontrol of the clearinghouse, or perhaps on variousvendors/suppliers/subcontractors computers as well as on theclearinghouse computer 30, that systematically checks the carriers'needs with the end-user offerings (which are stored and processed usingthe end user record application and the sorting and parsing application36). FIG. 4 shows a flow diagram, where the computer reads the carrierrecords 410, and uses the specified data by the carrier to check all ofthe records in the database attributable to end user records 412. Notethat end user records 412 are understood to also include public domainrecords available from public databases, or from data sources notprovided by end users but which are blended with the end user recordsfor sake of the applications being run at the Clearinghouse (e.g. GoogleEarth may have WiFi hot spot locations, and this information may beincluded along with end user records that have been provided by citizensto the Clearinghouse). Note that a user of the Clearinghouse may specifythe option of including or excluding various public domain databasesfrom the end user database processing, so as to distinctively identifyand process only true end user submissions in the various applications.The sorting implemented by the computer to find the carrier needs may bedone in any number of ways which are well known to those skilled in theart of computer programming and database sorting. Zip code sort,price/leasing terms sort, physical building type or land use sort, orpast history or profile of the end user herself might be used todetermine “best” sites that exist in the end user database. As shown inFIG. 4, after entry into the clearinghouse 414 and checking of theavailability of locations 416, algorithms at 418 that compare the enduser database to the carrier needs may include the RF engineeringapplication 29, which provides for RF propagation prediction coveragemapping in determining whether a particular end user entrysatisfactorily meets the carrier needs. Alternatively, no RF propagationmay be used, where simple straight line distances, crude addressmatching or simple text string matches on zipcodes or street addresses,or even county addresses or GPS coordinates (Lat/Long.) are used todetermine good matches in the database during the computer controlledsort. The carrier may establish one or more criterion for rank orderingthe end user sites, such as based on fee wanted by an end user, the RFcoverage of each end user location, the land use or type of propertybeing offered by the end user, or if there are carriers already usingthe end user site. A hard or soft limit on what should be and should notbe deemed suitable may be specified by the carrier, or may be preset bythe Clearinghouse in order to manage database sizes and CPU time. A rankordered list of properties is presented to the carrier at 420, either byemail, by a web page hosted by the Clearinghouse specifically for thecarrier, or by fax, mail, cellphone alert, or some other known method.Note that the rank ordering may be done in a wide range of methods,where close proximity to the carrier needs may be one rank, or lowestcost end-user access may be another, whereas the ranking may be based ona carrier's preset priority for properties that it needs (e.g. to fillan urgent customer request in a particular location. Alternatively,there may not be any ranking done by the Clearinghouse, leaving the datain an unsorted form for the carrier or third party to analyze on itsown. The Clearinghouse may also alert the end users as to potentialinterest by the carrier at 422, if the carrier indicates in its recordsthat it wishes for the Clearinghouse to do so upon finding a match (thismay be done using a canned or prepared message by the carrier in orderto entice interest by the end user). The sorting in the SelectionOptimizer application may be run over and over again, as often asneeded, and alerts may be issued by the Clearinghouse for just new hits,or the most recent several hits, or the entire rank ordered list.Pricing may be instituted to offer premium or basic notification andsearch results. Interest by the end user can be confirmed by aresponsive message by telephone, e-mail or web posting at 424, andnon-interest can be provided similarly at 426, which presumably resultsin a return and rerunning of the search processes. The sorting processmay also include a check of zoning and other ordinances at 428 that mayhave a beneficial or negative impact on the suitability of anyparticular end user's assets by the carrier.

Alternatively, depending on the business model, the clearinghouse may beimplemented without a subscriber model, where carriers and end usersaccess the clearinghouse for no charge. In either case, the carriers orend users may simply be given unique ID's or clearinghouse names usingthe credit card/password application (their unique ID may be their emailaddress, or a customer-specified log in name), and in any case, thesecustomers are provided passwords (that may either be specified by them,or issued by the clearinghouse) that allows the end users and carriercustomers access to the clearinghouse. The various access permissionsallowed to each class of user of the clearinghouse is preferably managedby the access to web manager application 33.

The clearinghouse allows its users to connect over the myriad ofconnections, such as phone, internet, email, etc. The clearinghouse ispreferably connected via the internet to allow dissemination of itscontent over the worldwide web, so that the public can gain access andview/use the information contained in the clearinghouse. The content ofthe clearinghouse is stored in a wide range of forms, such as databasesthat may be within the computer, databases that are located outside ofthe computer, in applications that may be run or managed by thirdparties, and may include public domain databases and information fromlinks on the worldwide web.

Some of the information may be modified or viewed by different users.For example, and with reference to FIG. 2, carriers may view the recordsof all end users 210 to help the carrier see what opportunities existfor it to locate its equipment, and the carriers could also use theclearinghouse to indicate its own desires, needs, interests, and problemareas where they have need to find locations for equipment in thecarrier records 212. In one embodiment, other carriers, end-users, orthe public users would not be privy to the carrier's specific desires orneeds, but the carrier would be able to use these records. End-users mayuse the clearinghouse to enter their data, expressing their interest (anoffer) in having their dwelling used by carriers. In one embodiment,other end-users would not generally be allowed to see the offers of aparticular end-user, but carriers would be allowed to see it. Thestoring, parsing, controlling, and organization of end-user records 210is done by the sorting and parsing applications 36 used by theclearinghouse (shown on right of FIG. 1). The construction and creationof software applications to do this are well understood, and this couldbe internally developed by the clearinghouse staff, or developed usingwell known third party programs.

All users, including public users could use the clearinghouse to viewvarious zoning/covenants affecting their own neighborhoods. Users canpreferably submit records, documents, plat maps, zoning ordinances, orprovide web links thereto, by accessing the Clearinghouse and using oneof the applications dedicated for such locationing and mounting orlinking of records in the Clearinghouse. Thereby, all users of theClearinghouse can readily access public records 214 in an easy manner,such as key documents, zoning records, or other public ordinancessurrounding telecom regulations in their specific location,neighborhood, country, or city, etc. Such records can be mounted in theClearinghouse and sorted using either Zipcode, city, county, township,state, country name, whereby applications allow the documents to beretrieved and stored in a manner that makes them easily retrievable andaccessible by users of the Clearinghouse. For specific classes of users,such as end users and carriers, for example, lease agreements, whichprovide for the business and legal terms for a legal contract between anend user and one or more carriers, may also be available for download,execution, and upload between parties, where the Clearinghouse serves asthe agent that provides this capability. By law, some documents may needto be notarized or faxed, instead of uploaded, but the Clearinghousecould nevertheless provide the appropriate legal documents and storethem, crossing the transaction between the parties, and may alsoparticipate in a commission, either one time or on going during thelease of the end user property. Carriers and perhaps even end userscould provide the Clearinghouse with a small commission, on the order of2 or 3%, for the monthly rental charge paid by the carrier to the enduser, and this could be automatically deducted from credit card orelectronic banking funds, or other means known now or in the future.

Note that some documents may be uploaded to the Clearinghouse by PDF orother well known document formats, or may simply be pointed to using URLaddresses or other techniques known now or in the future. Services suchas Google or webcrawlers or web bots may also be used to provide theclearinghouse information, through end user records 210, carrier records212 or public records 214 as shown in FIG. 2, and in many instances aparticular map or document might need to be categorized under a state ornational as well as local category. The Clearinghouse computer couldmaintain this data in its own storage facility (e.g in its own internaldatabase), or rely on the web-based storage of other websites as part ofits overall database 510 (although this latter approach may mean somedata disappears or becomes incorrectly pointed to over time).

FIG. 6 shows a number of the same elements as FIG. 1 including thecomputer 30, display 44, internet connection 38, as well as a variety ofapplications 28 for covenants and/or plat maps, city planning and zoningordinances and neighborhood covenants, Google Earth , GIS or othermapping applications, forums and exchanges including chat features,education and customer content, re-engineering applications, andproprietary or public RF Design. FIG. 6 also shows customizedadvertising or web content provided to homeowners or other end users 610and carriers 612. Carriers, end users and public users may access theClearinghouse with phone banks, web servers, telephone operators (eitherits own phone operators, or through a leased or rented call center, orusing a 3^(rd) party provider for telephone answering services),automatic speech recognition devices (not shown), voice mail, or digitalrecorders and email servers. Note that some or all of these may be usedin an actual embodiment, and it is understood that other embodimentsother than the one shown could be used, based on the cost or preferenceor technology or rollout of the Clearinghouse. It should be clear thatnot all applications shown in FIGS. 1 and 6 would need to be installedor used at once, and one skilled in the art can envision differentapplications, or different approaches to organizing content, or subsetsof the applications, or a merge between some of these applications couldbe implemented over time, while keeping in the spirit and intent of theinvention.

Given the aggregation capabilities of the Clearinghouse, advertisers,attempting to focus on various customer segments, can preferably provideadvertising to the various users of the Clearinghouse, either throughemail, the website display, through voice mail and video/multimediaservices when users access the Clearinghouse, and through regular mail,based on the address records contained in the end user records andcarrier records applications. Web advertising is an emerging business,and the Clearinghouse would serve as a highly targeted and useful mediumfor advertising over many domains, given the new capability and targetedclientele afforded by the present invention. The email application mayalso be used by the Clearinghouse, itself, to send email alerts to usersof the Clearinghouse (e.g. to end users or carriers, or to the publicwhich has registered their email with the Clearinghouse), and the webapplication may be used by the Clearinghouse, as well, to provide webpostings to specific users who are allocated specific web addresses orpassword protected access for confidential or specialized data.

FIGS. 1 and 6 show the Clearinghouse also supports forums and exchanges,where end users may communicate with one another, where carriers and endusers may communicate with each other, and where carriers may meet andcommunicate with each other. This may be provided using chat facilities,instant messaging, VoIP, or web posting, as well as other forms ofpeer-to-peer and peer-to-group hosting applications. The archives inthis portion of the Clearinghouse will help others in gaining knowledgeand understanding of the clearinghouse and the needs of thetelecommunication industry, carriers, and end users in general, therebyproviding valuable insights for a growing customer base. In addition tothe forums, FIGS. 1 and 6 show the Clearinghouse serves as an educator,a trusted resource that provides content, links to important telecomrulings and happenings, and provides open content for the world toaccess. This education/content application allows the Clearinghouse toalso publish, either in print, email, or web, or podcast, or broadcastform, newsletters, information pieces, and promotional pieces that mayadvance the needs of particular carriers or segments of the telecomindustry.

Access to carriers and end-users as described herein allows theClearinghouse to be private labeled or OEMed by particular carriers, orby particular intermediaries in the infrastructure industry, orentities, such as the American Radio Relay League or JARL, which hasmany constituents who own towers or have interest in advancing telecomin general. By creating a private labeled enterprise or user class webpresence or print presence, the knowledge and content of theClearinghouse can be dispensed to particular groups of customers or endusers, for the benefit of the industry or for the benefit of aparticular carrier, intermediary, business, or industry segment. Thus,the knowledge contained by the Clearinghouse may be distributed in manydifferent ways in parallel. This perpetuates the growth of subscribersor users of the Clearinghouse, while serving an unmet need which wouldbenefit many carriers or organizations, particularly small and mediumWISPs, citizens in general, expanding telecom providers in rural oremerging lands, large carriers looking to roll out “small iron”infrastructure, and large and small telecom companies that realize thatthe clearinghouse is a less expensive resource to promote their owntechnology or their own presence or needs.

In addition to the abilities mentioned above, the computer provides theClearinghouse with the ability to allow a carrier to exploit theend-user information in order to identify locations or dwellings whereend users will allow it to install equipment or towers, etc. Withoutdivulging the needs of the carriers, or the entire contents of the enduser database, the Clearinghouse may allow the general public to viewits own local areas of interest, say through zip code search or streetsearch, to see who in their community is offering site opportunities. Ofcourse, the end user must first have opted to have his or her listingmade public for the general public to be able to see it, which is anoption that may be provided when end user records are provided to theClearinghouse. By viewing local listings, the community may validatethat the listing, the map, and description is good—generally people inthe same neighborhood will be interested in seeing if it's the rightplat map, the right link, etc). If made public by the end user orcarrier, or clearinghouse, neighbors may also be interested in theremuneration provided to the end user from one or more carriers. TheClearinghouse preferably would allow the general public to rate thequality of the postings (for example, one to five stars), and to providecustomer feedback, thoughts on the experience, etc. (social commerce andword of mouth). Everyone who uses the Clearinghouse website wouldoptionally and preferably need to have an assigned account or screenname so they can be credited with finding and posting info/data, and getranked by the community.

In one embodiment, the Clearinghouse allows carriers or intermediariesto have a look at all end user offerings without giving away what thecarrier wants or needs. Carriers may list their standard legal andbusiness term agreements and have the ability to use the Clearinghouseto see readily if there will be local ordinance hassles, neighborhoodhassles, limitations due to covenants, as shown in FIG. 4 and asdescribed above. Letting the end users and the public post thisinformation, on a zip code or neighborhood by neighborhood, county bycounty, township by township, sq mile by sq mile basis, is best, asthese maps for the boundaries exist.

Ham radio operators already have towers and are technically savvy, oftenready to help with the provisioning of broadband. The Amateur RadioRelay League, (ARRL); Japan Amateur Radio League (JARL), Radio Societyof Great Britain (RSGB), etc. would likely have interest in hosting orrebranding the Clearinghouse to its own purposes and for its membership,possibly as a revenue generating opportunity for its own society and asa service to its ham radio operator members, who often have towers andhave already taken care of the zoning issues in their own neighborhoods.Amateur radio towers are often exempt from tower restrictions due to thecommon good and emergency preparedness that amateur (or “ham”) operatorsprovide to society. The lower profile (“small iron” footprint) oftoday's wireless telecom equipment, such as WiFi, WiMax, and much of theemerging broadband wireless infrastructure, does not require bulky celltowers, and can readily be installed on most ham radio towers today. Theinvention will allow carriers or intermediaries to immediately findthese hams and offer leasing terms, so that the carriers may approachthis community for potential tower sites. This helps quicken thedeployment of wireless without the need to erect new towers or to gothrough extensive zoning hearings. Increasing the time to build outcoverage or capacity is very valuable to a carrier, and thus the carrierwould likely pay to have access to the Clearinghouse.

Record Forms shown in FIG. 3 are submitted via web or submitted byvoice, email/touch tone, data entry/handwriting, fax, and otherelectronic means known now or in the future, including file transfer,etc. The forms reflect data shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, which is processed,sorted and parsed by the sorting and parsing application 36, and storedin the Clearinghouse database 510 (FIG. 5). The data preferably indicatewhere the end user is physically located, and whether the end user has aTower, or places on roof, house, building for antenna mounting orequipment mounting, etc. For example, either through entered data by theend user, or through public access to records that augments the end userprovided records, or from file transfers from third parties, the carrieror third party uses the clearinghouse to determine answers to questionssuch as: Does the end user have to be on site when telecom companycomes? Does end user have power or utilities available? Does end userwant maintenance of tower/building? Will user want cash, cash rebate, orfree internet or phone service? Does end user own the land or rent? Isuser aware of any zoning or limitations, neighborhood covenants thatwould prevent stuff going up, if so where? Does the owner haveinsurance, and what liability insurance is needed, required, on hand?Has end user successfully leased to a carrier before? Is the end user aham radio operator or technically minded? Can cabling be buried on thepremises? How close is the end user to other towers included in the enduser database or public databases? What is the value of end users home,as identified by tax plat public tax record database, and is it a singlefamily residence, apartment, commercial building, etc.? What are thedesired business and/or legal terms to do a lease transaction, and whatis the first/best/desired offer. These types of data would be linked inwith town/country records of public land, and further linked with Googlemaps or another mapping technology, so that end users and or carriers orthird parties could view potential locations with a vast amount ofinformation contained in the Clearinghouse database.

Of course, some end users may wish to negotiate for deal terms on leasesto carriers, in which case the Clearinghouse can provide the forum foran electronic negotiation, or an auction, where a carrier may find apotential site of interest, notify the end-user through email abouttheir interest and with a first offer, and then wait for a reply fromthe end user as to how to move to a final negotiation and signed leaseagreement. Alternatively, the end user may have an idea of their initialbusiness terms, and this may be provided in the end user's providedrecords. All of these steps are handled by the Clearinghouse and itsapplications as described above, preferably through the worldwide web,or by other electronic interface means.

Using the Clearinghouse for Radio Quality and Service for WirelessDevices

As described above, the Clearinghouse provides a database of towerlocations provided by end users and carriers, and further provides forthe ability to access public records such as governmental towerdatabases and frequency planning rules and regulations. Thus, it isclear that the Clearinghouse is able to maintain information about morethan one carrier, and in fact can store information about every publiclydisclosed tower, as well as the inventory of towers provided by endusers, as well as infrastructure information provided by multiplecarriers. Data such as transmitter frequencies, antenna heights aboveground, owners of spectrum, leaser of spectrum, type of license, datethe license expires, type of services offered, may all be cataloged andstored in (or accessible to) the database in the Clearinghouse so thatthere exists, on the worldwide web at the Clearinghouse website, aposition-tagged listing of wireless assets for multiple bands, andmultiple carriers. This web site may be private access(password/subscriber protected) or open access to the world, dependingon the desired business model.

Given that the clearinghouse is coupled to the internet, theClearinghouse database can be used for cataloging the wirelessavailability (signals, bandwidth/capacity, services, carriers whoprovide service, quality of offered service, over multiple bands and forone or many carriers and services that are available to a particularwireless device in a specific location or locations on earth.Furthermore, the Clearinghouse may average, smooth, or providebest/worst/average estimates of the quality of wireless service, and itsavailability, based on the on-going measurements reported by end usersand their devices at various parts of the globe. Thus, the Clearinghousebecomes an archived record of wireless quality at various locations, andthis record is included in the clearinghouse database and updated orrefreshed under computer control as described in FIG. 5. This inventioncan be extended to work for different kinds of wireless devices, forexample WiFi LANs are different than cellular/WiMax/LTE networks, sothis Clearinghouse capability could be available for each type ofservice, or providing information for all services in a singleclearinghouse.

The inventor envisions a clearinghouse that can be used/updated/accessedand built upon, by individual's experiences in accessing wirelessconnectivity across the globe. As shown in FIG. 7, the reports of RFquality and capacity are preferably done by the end user or the enduser's device, where the user of the wireless device, or the wirelessdevice 710 itself (as shown in FIG. 7), reports to the web Clearinghouseits experiences over a wide range of bands, frequencies, providers, andservices. The wireless device 710 may be capable of voice, data,multimedia, and/or wireless call connections. Web connections could bein band, the same channel as current wireless “call” connection or outof band, or different channels than the present wireless call. Note thatthe coupling of the mobile device 710 to the internet (e.g. theClearinghouse website) is done over the wireless call connection.However, this coupling may also be done over a wired means as describedbelow, or may be conducted at a different time or location using adifferent wireless carrier or frequency than used for a wireless call orinternet session. While not shown explicitly in FIG. 7, anotherembodiment of this feature of the invention would be for the basestation or fixed infrastructure of a wireless network (and not thewireless end user device) to collect measurements or performance metricsover a wide range of spectrum for the quality of RF coverage, capacity,and overall communications quality, on either/both the forward andreverse wireless links, and to provide that data to the Clearinghousevia worldwide web connection that is often provided at the base stationor fixed infrastructure. Of course, both the fixed infrastructure andthe mobile device could collectively and cooperatively report back datato the clearinghouse, as well as receive data from the Clearinghouse.

Preferably, the end users phone 710 would report its observations to theClearinghouse in an automatic manner without ongoing user control andeven without knowledge by the user. Indeed, phones or wireless mobiledevices 710 of the future may be simple dongles, computers, and a widerange of wearable or sensor devices 711 that may access theClearinghouse in real time, or prior to a wireless phone call, orintermittently during or after a call, while the mobile device 710 isidle, or even when the cellphone (e.g mobile device) is off or not inuse (but connected to the internet by wired means). That is, the memory712 of the wireless device 710 may store the measurements andobservations of various radio quality and performance metrics, foruploading to the Clearinghouse using any type of connection to theworldwide web—wired or wireless, not necessarily just during a call orduring travel. These measurements will be paired with geographiclocation information obtained using a GPS or any other location sensingor position estimating techniques 714 that may involve an onboardcomputer (not shown) in the cellphone or computer 711, or external tothe mobile device 710, such as through infrastructure position locationmethods. Thus, the Clearinghouse is able to continue to build a databasethat is built upon location-specific reports of radio coverage,services, carriers, bandwidths, and past user experiences, even whencertain mobile devices must wait to report their observations (due topoor coverage, priorities of the device or user in providingcommunications, or when battery 716 is too weak to justify accessing theClearinghouse at certain times). FIG. 7 contemplates a mobile device 710that is able to access the Clearinghouse via the worldwide web, in orderto query or determine information, in either real-time or non-real time,about the radio environment and performance quality in its particularlocation. This access may also be in real time or non real time byeither wireless or wired means.

As shown in FIG. 8, using the invention described herein, a wirelessdevice 810 is able to couple to the Clearinghouse website (andconsequently the Clearinghouse database 820) through its wirelesscarrier to automatically provide (e.g. upload) its readings,measurements, or observations to the Clearinghouse, either in a batch(stored) method, or periodic, intermittent, or random update method,using either wireless 825 or wired connectivity to the internet 830, andis also able to access the Clearinghouse database (e.g download) todetermine general information about the radio environment (to helpoptimize the battery use, RF radiation, or mode/data rate selection ofthe mobile device) or to find what channel to tune to, what carrier touse, or what services to expect or access, without wasting transmitpower, battery life. Thus, the Clearinghouse can both rely on dataprovided by wireless devices at various locations in order to providedata that allows particular inquiring wireless devices to adjust theiraccess techniques to the wireless channel in a certain geographic areain a manner that matches the specific coverage/RF/quality of thelocation. While FIG. 8 shows a wireless connection, the device 810 couldbe connected by wired/optical connection through the Internet 830 to theClearinghouse database 820. Note that location information may beprovided by the mobile device 810, or may obtained through an externalor alternative means, perhaps from the carrier's infrastructure, orthrough other methods.

The network performance or quality of service information as a functionof location may be downloaded to the wireless device from theClearinghouse either before a user of the device travels to a location,or during the travel, itself, as illustrated in FIG. 9. While FIG. 9shows a wireless connection, it should be noted that clearinghouseinformation may be provided to the mobile device 910 using wired means,as well. FIG. 9 is substantially similar to FIG. 8, and shows the flowof information from the Clearinghouse, and consequently theClearinghouse database 920 to the wireless device 910 through theInternet 930 and Tower 925. As shown in FIG. 9, recent snapshots or datavalues of quality as a function of location, as obtained from theClearinghouse, may be stored in the memory of a mobile device 910, andupdated at a rate determined by either the Clearinghouse, the end user,or the wireless carrier providing end user service. When in the fieldwith a planned trip, the user can get downloaded information afterhandshake by the wireless device 910 being able to retrieve from theClearinghouse 920 (in an automated fashion or with a user interfacinginterval) the local “state” of the RF environment he or she is in ortraveling to which may include the services that are available,carriers, locations of towers, etc., so that the phone can use power andallocate spectrum better. This handshake may be provided over the air inreal time or pseudo real time, or may take place earlier when the phoneis connected or idle at home in a wired or wireless home network, ordocked in its charger, etc.

FIG. 10 shows a flow diagram of how the Clearinghouse and mobile devicework together to provide enhanced service for the wireless subscriberend user. The network quality information, and relative ranking ofcarriers, frequencies, or selected power levels or data rates/modulationtypes as a function of location may be downloaded from the internet atsteps 1010 and 1012 (e.g. Clearinghouse website) before leaving for thetrip, where the position location coordinates are obtained prior to thetrip path from Google Map, Mapquest, or some other path finding methodthat allows for interpolation or storage of position coordinates, andthese position location coordinates are stored in the memory of themobile device. Alternatively, if implemented in real time or in nearreal time during a trip, the mobile device may use a road navigationsystem in the car, a navigation application in the phone, or GPS in thephone in order to determine its position location as shown at step 1010.The wireless device thus has latitude/longitude or GPS coordinates,either measured by GPS or by its own navigation application, or asinterpolated or as stored from a pre-planned trip route stored inmemory. These locations are then provided by the mobile device to theClearinghouse at 1012, (note that the locations provided by the mobiledevice to the Clearinghouse could be determined on the fly as the usermoves with her wireless device on the trip, either in band or out ofband, across a wireless network during the travel.) The Clearinghouse,based on the locations presented by the mobile device, provides to thedevice specific performance or quality of service metrics or rankings,such as desired frequencies, best or rank ordered list of carriers touse at each specific location, preferred modulation types, upper orlower limit on data rate, upper or lower limit on bandwidth, or a rankedlisting of available (in the area who provide service) wireless carriersat the various interpolated locations at step 1014. This information maybe transparent to the user of the mobile device, as shown at step 1014,and may match a user profile, such as “highest download speed”, or“cheapest cost” or “always pick Verizon if it can give me better than 10Mbps”, which the user may have programmed on his cellphone or programmedthrough his wireless carrier through a website or in the store uponpurchase or renewal. Alternatively, the information provided by theClearinghouse may be visible to the end user, as also shown at step1014, either over the wireless device, or at the Clearinghouse website,provided the end user is a participant of the Clearinghouse. In thismanner, the Clearinghouse facilitates multiple-carrier operation at step1020 and may provide network enhancements over a wide range of spectrumfor a single user, which will be required if federal regulations requirean open spectrum policy where various carriers must support traffic byusers of a specific carrier network. Such operation enhances batterylife and improves phone and network performance through control ofinterference, spectrum usage, and power, while being impartial to anyone particular wireless carrier.

Given the location (whether actual or estimated) of the wireless device,and information of the radio frequency (RF) quality and coverage and theservices and bands available for access are identified at step 1016, thewireless device may make good decisions at step 1018 as how to accesswireless in the particular location, thereby saving battery life, cost,time, or improving connectivity for the particular desired applicationused by the user of the wireless device. The Clearinghouse/database onthe web would communicate to wireless devices either in real time overthe web, or prior to the wireless device going to a location, withinformation that allows the phone to determine the best or 2^(nd) best(or a priority/ranked list) of frequencies, or carrier providers, orservices, or bandwidths, based on the customer's predetermineddesires/needs (lowest cost service, highest data rate service, longestbattery life service, etc). Or the user may adjust their desires forservice priority on the fly as they travel and learn the quality of thenetworks they are in. This may be done automatically (with preset usersettings) or may be visible/shown to the user through an application onthe web or via the wireless device. Note that the carrier/serviceprovider, or the wireless device manufacturer, or some other party, mayalso set the priorities for desired service based on price,availability, instant channel loading in the network, or other factors.

In fact, the world's RF/QoS/coverage/service map could be loaded on to awireless device from the web clearinghouse, and then updatedperiodically or infrequently, at either the request of the phone user orautomatically by the wireless device, to update the database of theRF/QoS/services, capabilities over location.

The phone/wireless device could access the web either through a userapplication or this could be done autonomously, where a web server thathosts the clearinghouse communicates over wireless or wired means withthe wireless device. This can be done using low level formatting thatwould not be readable by a regular user, but which is loaded into memoryof the wireless device.

The web server and clearinghouse may be central or distributed, and canstore and represent the services, locations, frequencies,carrier/owners, and other information that would be useful for awireless device to automatically determine what frequencies orapplications or capabilities it might experience in a particularlocation on the globe. Global coordinates may be represented in manyways known to those skilled in the art, and the ability to autonomouslyaccess the web is well understood today.

Users may also, either by their own activities, or through the wirelessdevice autonomously either known or unknown to the user, communicateupdates or in-the-field readings of the various signals andcapacities/bandwidths received by the wireless device in a particularlocation back to the clearinghouse. That is, wireless devices may reportback (autonomously in a preferred embodiment) to the clearinghouse theiruser experiences over a wide range of frequencies, bands, applications,along with the location of the wireless device. FIG. 11 indicates a flowchart that shows how a mobile device provides information to theClearinghouse, and how such information is applied to thelocation-specific database maintained by the Clearinghouse. The idea ofusing GPS or some other position location means, even if as crude assensing what major tower or market or carrier signal or nearby TV or FMor AM transmitter, etc. is received by the wireless device (crudeposition locationing) could be used, as could more accurate TDOA or GPSmethods. In any case, the invention contemplates the ability of users toreport back to the Clearinghouse in step 1110, either in real time orwhen they become located where network access is easy or free, themeasured quality and coverage and capabilities of wireless in aparticular location/geographic region. The courseness of the geographicregion may be determined based on speed of user, the application used bythe user, or set by the Clearinghouse, or by many other methods.Similarly, the courseness or the position location may be specified orset by the Clearinghouse, and more value or cost or premium preferencemay be given to certain subscribers or users of the Clearinghouse whowish to have more accurate (fine resolution, say within a few meters,few hundred meters) of wireless spectrum quality/availability than thosewho are satisfied with course position locationing (say a few thousandmeters).

The measurements reported back to the Clearinghouse by wireless usersare added to the location specific database in step 1112, and just likethe obtaining of various radio qualities and metrics for a particularlocation of the wireless user, may also be done without knowledge by theuser, and may be done in an autonomous communication between thewireless device and clearinghouse.

This database can also be contributed to by users who wish to add/recordtheir own experiences, either autonomously or manually through a publicwebsite offered by the Clearinghouse. Carriers could enter their owndatabase into the web clearinghouse, or the clearinghouse could use botsor automated web crawlers to find websites from FCC, Chinese government,private or public company websites, Comsearch, etc. to build a largedatabase of spectrum availability and tower locations andbandwidths/services with a common website. Note that this Clearinghousecould also have users provide inputs as to their perceived orexperiential views of radio coverage or phone/web quality at step 1114when they were in a particular location. Note that the entry of this“performance” data could be added by users based on their ownexperience, and could also be provided by carriers based on their knowninfrastructure locations. Alternatively, phones of the future, equippedwith GPS or any other type of location capability, could automatically,without any human interaction, upload to the website, on a periodic,one-time, infrequent, or regular basis, the perceived/measured radioreception quality, bit rate, capacity, availability, average useprofile, average availability profile, statistics on outage orreliability or coverage or capacity carrying capabilities, or anevaluation of the RF or end-user application performance, and thisinformation may be loaded to the Clearinghouse for inclusion in thedatabase that is available. The database is updated at step 1116 atvarious intervals that make sense for the implementation of theClearinghouse (daily, hourly, by minute, by week, and this may be doneon a global or on a specific location basis across the clearinghousedatabase, that itself may be distributed or located centrally). Theupdated information is made available to users on an ongoing basis, forfurther utility and enjoyment.

Reporters of RF quality and quality of the services, and access to theclearinghouse may be shared between carriers, user populations, owners,etc. so that information may be made available to update the globalclearinghouse while providing those updates to large numbers of userswho own wireless devices, for the improvement of operation of thewireless devices, or benefit to the carrier(s) or to the customers ofwireless devices or customers of the wireless service access.

Once this clearinghouse is created, then future phones or wirelessdevices could access this Clearinghouse web site at step 1118, eitherconducted by the person who is the subscriber, or automatically by thephone device itself, or by the carrier or service provider, and couldeven be accessed by the application running on the mobile device that isintended to be used at the specific location, and over a wirelesschannel, to rapidly determine the type of coverage/quality of coverage,the various vendors in the geographic region of the user, how to bestsend the message, how to conserve bandwidth, improve battery life, etc.

FIG. 12 illustrates the flow diagram of how a mobile device may accessthe Clearinghouse, whether in the idle mode, or during a cellphone orinternet session, or whether connected to the internet via wireless orwired means. The mobile device is able to use the Clearinghouse-providedrankings of best service providers or air interface specifications andobservations in order to enhance or optimize its own performance. Thismay simultaneously correspond to enhanced performance of the entirenetwork that the phone is operating in. The wireless device is able tomaintain a ranked list of preferred operating modes and carriers orservices based on its current location, as well as estimated futurelocations, as it provided to the Clearinghouse. Future locations may bedetermined from past records maintained in the phone itself as to whereit often in use (using past position location measurements), or futurelocations may be determined by the carrier, which may provideintermittent measurements of an end user's location. Alternatively, theClearinghouse may maintain records of past usage and locationinformation of particular end users, through low overhead wirelessinternet connections or through batched (stored) records from particularwireless devices.

The exchange between the end user mobile device and the Clearinghouse'sworldwide web address (e.g. IP Address) requires a handshake so thatusers may be properly identified and properly monitored and controlleduniquely by the Clearinghouse at step 1210. Thus, there is a negotiatedpassword/access that must take place whenever the mobile device attemptsto connect with the Clearinghouse, and vice versa. This may befacilitated through the credit card sign up and password managementapplication of the Clearinghouse, or may be a separate application undercomputer control. The end user's Mobile ID number (MIN), ElectronicSerial Number (ESN), or some combination of data using one or both ofthese numbers may be used for registration/access to the Clearinghouse,and so that mobile devices may be identified uniquely through over theair or web-access data exchanges. Once identified, data can be sent tothe phone from the Clearinghouse at step 1212, and the phone can beproperly tuned to the best band service provider or be interfaced forminimum power drain at step 1214. The Clearinghouse will also allowreporters of information to be ranked based on their accuracy andcollaboration with other reporters of quality/RF/services/information.Furthermore, the service providers or spectrum allocations, themselves,would be ranked by the Clearinghouse (e.g. at this Location, WiMax bandis best, and gets 5 stars, whereas PCS Band has bad coverage orperformance, and only gets 1 star, etc). This listing information can bemaintained in the phone at step 1216 and can be updated based on currentand estimated future locations. Step 1218 shows that when the device isin motion, updates can be obtained automatically from the Clearinghouse.Individuals who report in their observations may also be ranked (e.g.Bill Smith does a good job reporting quality of different radio bandsand services near Austin, and gets 5 stars, or a 99% rating, as opposedto someone who frauds the system by reporting bogus measurements—thepeer group or the web crawlers/data analysis of the database would findthese outliers and give them lower rankings, say 1 star or 10%accuracy). These rankings could be weighted to give assessment of theentire radio spectrum and services/quality/coverage in any location onthe earth. This will be a critical and vital invention for the future ofmultiband radios, and has clear applications in open-access wirelesswhich is likely to evolve with the 700 MHz FCC spectrum auction, and theentrance of Google, Amazon, EBay/Skype into the wireless world. Thisinvention also has strong impact and will assist the evolution ofCognitive or Software defined radios (SDRs).

Using the Clearinghouse for Local Advertising using WirelessInfrastructure

This invention may be extended further to allow for distributed wirelesscontent, either provided through standard internet browsers, or throughrecorded, or real-time means in audio or video or multimedia or textformats, that may be transmitted through transmission to cellphonedevices, computer devices, or other mobile devices or other devices thatare connected using wireless transmission, known now or in the future,to be delivered on a location-specific basis. As mentioned above, mediacontent may be audio, video, multimedia, or webpage based, as well asother forms that may be known now or in the future. This invention hasparticular applicability to local advertising, as advertising content isoften difficult to provide through the worldwide web. Furthermore, thisinvention can be used generally for any type of content, not justadvertisement content, that has specific value to users or viewers inspecific geographic, physical locations. That is, the invention may beused for signage that provides location-specific content to wirelessdisplays or wireless users, for example, or which, for example, providesinformation about movies that are playing in a movie theater to wirelessusers who are in the parking lot of the movie theater.

Today, the internet advertising industry has difficulty in providinglocation-based content, since people who log onto the web may be locatedanywhere in the world. For example, on a Google search page, ads thatappear on the right hand column of the display, are generally notdisplayed in a location-specific basis. Indeed, access over the internetallows users from all over the planet to access a particular webpage,through a web address (an Internet Protocol address). Thus, the standardinternet protocol does not allow a web server to know, ahead of time,the specific physical location of a particular browsing user. Whilethere are techniques to improve the guess as to where web browsers arelocated, through the use of cookies and previously entered data by afixed internet user, wireless communications (which includes opticalcommunications, and all electromagnetic signals), based on the law ofphysics such as Friis free space equation, is the best way to providelocal coverage, since wireless is limited in propagation distance basedon a number of factors such as the radiated power of the transmitter,the height of the transmitting and receiving antenna, antenna gains, andcarrier frequency, obstructions in the physical environment, etc. Thus,wireless provides a built in ability to ensure location-basedadvertising which has not been previously exploited. This inventiondescribes a way that advertising content can be pushed to users withinthe radio frequency (RF) propagation range of mobile/portable/fixedusers who are tuned to a specific transmitted signal. Similarly, theprocesses described herein have application for devices that are capableof receiving multiple transmitted signals, from multiple radiatingsources, either simultaneously or in sequence, or sporadically.

The concept of today's internet-based advertising is to use generic,nationwide webpages, such as a typical webpage that may use banner adsto offer a product or service, or the use of banner ads on web blogs orother web pages, or adsense or adword ads (by Google, for example).However, the difficulty with these ads, from the standpoint of theadvertiser, is that it is unknown where the specific user is physicallylocated, thus it is very difficult to offer, in an efficient ormarket-driven manner, ads that are specifically local to the wirelessusers that might have interest (for example, a local coffee shop in aparticular city would not want to pay for a national ad on a nationalwebpage, but would rather pay only for those ads which are viewedspecifically by mobile or fixed wireless users who are in the samecity/town or neighborhood of the café and who want to take advantage ofspecial coffee specials.

One approach to provide location-based ads, is being pursued by Loopt,where they are working to sign up carriers in the cellular radio field.It was reported in December 2007 that Loopts has partnerships withSprint Nextel and Boost Wireless. Loopt relies on users being able torun a middlewear application on their cellphone device, which allows themobile device to send its GPS coordinates through the cellularinfrastructure, and based on the cellular infrastructure and GPSlocation, the location of user is determined, and an ad may be pushed tothe device from the carrier network. See New York Times, Feb. 6, 2008,Business Day article, “In CBS Test, Mobile ads find users”

In the invention, I approach location-based advertising in a different,and more efficient way than Loopt. The invention allows for theClearinghouse and its database to be an integral and valuable part of anovel local advertising system and method, that uses readily availablehardware to store, reformat, revise and transmit altered web pages thathave specific local content. No middlewear is required on themobile/fixed wireless device in this invention, although in someembodiments it may be used for acquiring user data, and helping to cacheor provision the invention in a more efficient manner.

By using the Clearinghouse and database for radio quality and servicefor wireless devices, and by maintaining an on-going list of performancerecords of users and infrastructure locations, it becomes possible tobuild a listing of towers, frequencies, types of service, users who havepermission/access abilities to the network, coverage regions of aparticular tower or transmitting signal, etc. as well as the physicallocation and proximity of users on one or more wireless services.However, even without the GPS information from users, one can providelocation based advertising, as disclosed herein and in conjunction withthe knowledge of towers, frequencies, and services offered.

Instead of having to determine the GPS location of each mobile user, aswith Loopt, using the present invention it is possible to use theinformation of the specific tower or transmitter site in order to“alter” or “fill” the national webpage with specific, local ads inparticular places on the displayed webpage. That is, a server, which maybe remote or located at the same location as the wireless infrastructureproviding the local signal, would be used to alter, modify, or rewritethe “original” webpage, and then would transmit the “localized” webpageover the local infrastructure, so that local advertisements would beused in place of national advertisements, in various places on awebpage, or in various audio or video fill locations, or in specifictext messages that are tailored for specific locations.

In this manner, its possible for a national or internationalorganization, or an international web portal, to be able to providelocal, target-specific ads, through knowledge of the location ofspecific base stations. In addition, the clearinghouse system wouldfurther allow particular users to be monitored for what type of ads theyuse, how they select different links (in the case of a webpage) and theinternet browsing patterns or effectiveness of the localized ads.

FIG. 13 shows a diagram of local content wireless infrastructure. FIG.13 shows a computerized Clearinghouse system, that may be a web-server,or multiple servers, that may be located at, near, or remote from thebase station infrastructure 1310 or 1312, whereby this server 1314 (orgroup of servers) may be provided the local-advertising information, ina machine readable format that allows the server 1314 to “override” orreplace the national webpage server in particular parts of the displayedwebpage at the mobile/fixed wireless device. Note that the fixedinfrastructure at the edge of the wireless network, shown as a basetransceiver station (BTS) or Switch or WLAN access point 1316, isconnected to the Internet 1318 through an IP network 1320 backbone. TheClearinghouse 1322 is also connected to the IP Network 1320, thus it ispossible to couple the Clearinghouse 1322 content to the edgeinfrastructure 1316, as contemplated above (see FIGS. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 and9, for example). The Clearinghouse 1322 provides format information forthe content server (also called an ad server), so that the contentserver 1314 knows what content to offer, and how to integrate the localcontent it has to offer along with the standard content provided overthe wireless network. Noted that Clearinghouse 1322 can be copied to thelocal ad server 1314. The local advertising content or content from theClearinghouse 1322 is transmitted to the mobile or fixed device 1324,thereby assuring delivery of localized advertising to the mobile orfixed device 1324.

The local content server 1314 is shown coupled to the edgeinfrastructure 1316 in FIG. 13. This local content server 1314 mayreceive copies of local content as provided by the Clearinghouse 1322,or may obtain content from other sources over the worldwide web, underthe control of the Clearinghouse 1322. Note, however, the local contentserver 1314 may be located remotely from the edge, or it mayalternatively be embedded within the hardware of the edge infrastructure1316. Since there is internet connectivity, the physical location of thecontent server 1314 doesn't matter tremendously, unless very high speedtraffic is contemplated, in which case providing the server near theedge infrastructure 1316 is the best choice.

Using the position-tagged listing of wireless assets for one or multiplebands, and one or multiple carriers, the disclosed invention providesthe ability to provide local advertising content for transmission in thedatastreams at particular local infrastructure locations. This may bedone by providing content for a localized ad (or other content) in acomputer file, and then providing a format for said content within thefile so that it may be conveniently packaged/placed, as either a banneror pop-up or adword type or other form suitable for use on a partialwebpage display that is transmitted by the edge infrastructure 1316. Themobile or fixed device 1324 receives the local advertising content fromthe infrastructure 1310 and 1312, and establishments desiring localizedadvertisements to devices within range of the infrastructure can beassured of a more targeted advertising campaign.

FIG. 14 shows a flow chart that allows local advertisers or localcontent providers to access the Clearinghouse system through theworldwide web, where the local advertisers can create and alterlocalized content. When the content is created at step 1410 and loadedonto the Clearinghouse system at step 1412, the advertiser is then ableto use the Clearinghouse to specify the format of their local content atstep 1414, and view it at step 1416 as it will appear in the local edgetransmissions, and may select geographical areas, cities, or specificlocations at step 1418 where the local content may appear. TheClearinghouse may use its billing application to receive revenues atstep 1420 for local advertisers, and the local content is then loadedinto the Clearinghouse, and may be distributed to the network edgeservers at step 1422. As noted in FIG. 14, the order of steps can vary,and the process allows the advertiser to alter, draft, and create in aniterative fashion to achieve the content or style that is desired and tobetter identify the targeted audience. In some embodiments, theadvertising may be distributed to a plurality of local ad servers 1420(e.g., distribution to multiple states during a primary campaign seasonfor a national elected office, etc.) Also, as noted in FIG. 14, some ofthe steps are optional and can be varied in the practice of theinvention. For example, instead of a monetary payment, the advertisermay provide some other form of service in exchange for the localadvertising afforded by the invention.

FIG. 15 shows how the local ad server continually checks the web pagesthat are accessed by the local users in the vicinity of the edgeinfrastructure. Once a local advertiser has registered with theClearinghouse, and has placed its content on the Clearinghouse (and alsothe local ad servers, if caching is done), then the local contentprovider's web address is added to a list of local advertisers. When anywebpage is requested by a local wireless user at step 1510, the local adserver (or, alternatively, the Clearinghouse or the edge infrastructureitself) searches the list of local advertisers at step 1520, and if alocal advertiser's web address is received at step 1530, the local adserver replaces the “normal” national webpage with the content specifiedin the local format at step 1540. This modified, local format web pageis then passed to the edge infrastructure at step 1550 for transmissionover the local edge network. It should be clear that while web pages arediscussed here, any type of content could be replaced, and any type oflocal content could be inserted in this manner. If the localadvertiser's web address is not received the requested web page isretrieved at step 1560.

The local webpage may be of ordinary form, with the local content instandard form as would be used for display on a wireless device (such asa laptop or cellphone). Then, a server computer or computers is used totake a source webpage (say from the national or the standard templateprovided over the internet) to then alter the datastreams transmittedfrom the local infrastructure, being different from the datastreamobtained from the source (such as a national webpage), and alteredspecifically for the specific physical location of the transmittertower, or group of towers, or infrastructure that is located in somephysical location such that wireless coverage is provided within aspecified geographical range. The transmitted local webpage is alteredefficiently based on the format of the local content file, whichprovides instructions as to where, specifically on the web page, thelocal ad should be placed. This placement may either replace an ad onthe national webpage, or it could be a complete replacement of thenational webpage with a custom local webpage, or some other contentcould be made to be transmitted from the local infrastructure.

This allows an advertiser to have local information filled in the properlocations on a web page display, or at the proper time sequence or filelocation in an audio or video or multi-media transmission. This alsoallows web portals such as Google or Yahoo or Ebay or any other toprovide localized advertising without requiring a specific GPScoordinate for each user in its region, thereby preserving valuablewireless resources that would otherwise be used up to provide positionacquisition and handshaking between the wireless infrastructure and themobile device.

The invention also has the ability to measure web statistics, web pageviewing, information about the use, page views, and click-throughactivity of localized advertisement or content webpages that areprovided by the Clearinghouse or the local ad-server. It is understoodthat web hits may be counted and tabulated, using many commercialproviders of such web statistics, or may be implemented by softwarerunning at the local content server, or at the Clearinghouse, in orderto count the various views and uses of webpages by local end users. Thisdata would be valuable for justifying and presenting the value andutility of local ad or local content provisions to the owner of thewireless network, as well as determining formats, presentationtechniques, delay times, and other technical and non-technicalimplementation of local content for improved activity, use, andmonetization.

The Clearinghouse could maintain a large archive of local advertisementfiles, and formats, that could be used and invoked over multiple bandsand for one or many carriers and services that could be provided overwireless infrastructure for specific locations on earth. This inventioncan be extended to work for different kinds of wireless infrastructuresand devices, for example WiFi LANs are different than cellular/WiMax/LTEsystems, which are different than standard 2.5 cellular. The advertisingsystem could be used in conjunction with the clearinghouse systemdescribed above, and one can envision this type of local advertisingsystem being available for each type of service or carrier, or for aspecific set of infrastructure (e.g. a WLAN system in a conventioncenter, where our invention would provide specific local advertising forthe specific convention center, whereas other convention centers aroundthe world would have their own specific ads placed on their web pages).This invention could also be used to provide local ad content andinformation for all types of infrastructures and wireless standards froma single clearinghouse.

It is envisioned that the local ad content can be updated by a specificadvertiser, where they are able to access a web portal and format theirad, along with payment for their ad, and having the ability indicatewhich city, specific tower locations, or specific geographies they wouldlike to have their ad appear on. Furthermore, they may pick if they wantcontinual, or partial time ad placements, which would be at differingcosts.

The advertiser would have the ability to view through the web portalwhat their ad would look like to mobile users in the specific selectedgeographic area, and they could compare that to the template, ornational website.

FIGS. 13 through 15 illustrate an exemplary embodiment of how the localad sever and Clearinghouse work together. They may be the same device,or information from the Clearinghouse may be copied, in part or inwhole, to the local ad server. The local ad server, itself, may becollocated with base station or network provider infrastructure, oritself may be remote and addressable, although speed is of the essenceto allow the localized webpage to quickly be revised and sent out overthe infrastructure. It should be clear, however, that this disclosure isnot limited to advertising, but any type of content may be applicable(e.g., localized emergency alerts; localized traffic announcements,etc.).

While the invention has been described in terms of several embodiments,it will be recognized that the invention can be practiced in a varietyof forms within the scope of the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of collecting and providing access toquality or service information associated with one or more wirelesscommunications networks, mobile devices, or end users, comprising: usinga computer, receiving mobile device location information of a pluralityof mobile devices or end users that are associated with one or morewireless communications networks and quality or service informationpertaining to wireless access characteristics for one or more mobiledevices of said plurality of mobile devices or end users, and saidquality or service information comprising coverage, availability orperformance information of one or more wireless communications networksor said one or more mobile devices, storing, by action of said computer,said mobile device location information and said quality or serviceinformation in a memory or database; updating, by action of saidcomputer, said mobile device location information stored in said memoryor database when a mobile device of said plurality of mobile devicestravels from one location to another; providing access to said qualityor service information stored in said memory or database to one or moreend users or one or more end user communication devices or one or morecarriers or third parties that provide services to said one or more endusers or one or more end user communication devices or one or morecarriers, or to said one or more wireless communications networks; andwherein said wireless access characteristics comprise one or more ofidentified, perceived or measured: radio reception quality, networkperformance, quality of service, data rate, spectrum availability orsuitability, capacity or bandwidth, availability or quality of coverage,availability or quality of capacity, availability or quality of one ormore services or carriers, availability or quality of air interfaces,average use profile, average availability profile, statistics on outageor reliability or coverage or capacity carrying capabilities for one ormore service providers, frequencies, radio frequency or quality ofservice or coverage or service map or addresses for one or more serviceproviders, radio frequency or end-user application performance, and costof service.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein said step of providingaccess provides access to said one or more end users or one or more enduser communications devices by reporting quality or service informationto said one or more end users or said one or more end usercommunications devices.
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein said quality orservice information is location specific.
 4. The method of claim 1,further comprising serving data based on mobile device locationinformation and quality or service information stored in said memory ordatabase.
 5. The method of claim 4 wherein said data comprises one ormore of a recommended operating band, operating mode, communicationsnetwork and/or carrier for end users or end user communications devices.6. The method of claim 5 wherein said data is formatted and served toend users or end user communications devices as one or more web pages.7. The method of claim 1, further comprising serving data based onmobile device location information or quality or service informationstored in said memory or database to one or more carriers.
 8. The methodof claim 1, further comprising providing access to quality or serviceinformation stored in said memory or database to a party or partiesother than subscribers and carriers of said one or more wirelesscommunications networks.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein said qualityor service information further comprises rank ordering or preferredpreferences for one or more of ranked or preferred: wirelessperformance, telecommunication services, service providers, carriers,frequencies, spectrum allocations, wireless connection options, powerlevels, data rates, modulation types, air interface specifications, andbandwidths, and wherein said providing step further provides access toone or more of said ranked ordering or preferred preferences to said oneor more end users or said one or more end user communication devices orsaid one or more carriers or said third parties that provide services tosaid one or more carriers, or to said one or more wirelesscommunications networks.
 10. A system for collecting and providingaccess to quality or service information associated with one or morewireless communications networks, mobile devices, or end users,comprising: a computer configured to receive mobile device locationinformation of a plurality of mobile devices or end users that areassociated with one or more wireless communications networks and qualityor service information pertaining to wireless access characteristics forone or more mobile devices of said plurality of mobile devices or endusers, and said quality or service information comprising coverage,availability or performance information of one or more wirelesscommunications networks or said one or more mobile devices; a memory ordatabase configured to store the received mobile device locationinformation and quality or service information; an interface throughwhich one or more end users or one or more end user communicationdevices, or one or more carriers, or one or more third parties thatprovide services to said one or more end users or one or more end usercommunication devices or said one or more carriers, or one or morewireless communications networks may access said quality or serviceinformation or mobile device location information stored in said memoryor database; and wherein said wireless access characteristics compriseone or more of identified perceived or measured: radio receptionquality, network performance, quality of service, data rate, spectrumavailability or suitability, capacity or bandwidth, availability orquality of coverage, availability or quality of capacity, availabilityor quality of one or more services or carriers, availability or qualityof air interfaces, average use profile, average availability profile,statistics on outage or reliability or coverage or capacity carryingcapabilities for one or more service providers, frequencies, radiofrequency or quality of service or coverage or service map or addressesfor one or more service providers, radio frequency or end-userapplication performance, and cost of service.
 11. The system of claim10, further comprising a server configured to serve quality or serviceinformation stored in said memory or database to one or more carriers.12. The system of claim 10, further comprising a server configured togenerate and serve data based on mobile device location information andquality or service information stored in said memory or database to oneor more end users or one or more end user communications devices. 13.The system of claim 12 wherein said data comprises one or more of arecommended operating band, operating mode, communications networkand/or carrier for said one or more end users or one or more of said enduser communications devices.
 14. The system of claim 13 wherein saidserver comprises a web server and said data is formatted as one or moreweb pages served to said one or more end users or one or more of saidend user communications devices.
 15. The system of claim 10 wherein saidcomputer is configured to provide access to quality or serviceinformation stored in said memory or database to a party or partiesother than subscribers and carriers of said one or more wirelesscommunications networks.
 16. The system of claim 10, wherein saidquality or service information further comprises rank ordering orpreferred preferences for one or more of ranked or preferred: wirelessperformance, telecommunication services, service providers, carriers,frequencies, spectrum allocations, wireless connection options, powerlevels, data rates, modulation types, air interface specifications, andbandwidths, and wherein said interface is configured to provide accessto one or more of said rank ordering or preferred preferences to saidone or more end users or said one or more end user communication devicesor said one or more carriers or said one or more third parties, or tosaid one or more wireless communications networks.